Political Musings

Good riddance to the last war criminal: Dubya Bush

2009-01-15T19:49:00.013+11:00

As the clock counts down to the final exit of Dubya Bush, only the most deaf, dumb, blind and intellectually/morally challenged people will miss the worst US president in history. But even amongst those Americans glad to see the backside of that cowboy, some were Dubya supporters until things turned to crap - to use a diplomatic turn of phrase.

It was only when "victory" in Iraq wasn't happening, and most recently, the economy was going down the crap tube, that it began to dawn upon them, maybe just maybe Bush was and is a Loser. And maybe, just maybe, it was legitimate to question his policies and actions.

But it wasn't lost on many people around the world, these late converts weren't driven by moral principle to repudiate the Loser. They began to repudiate the Loser only when an Iraqi victory was slipping away and when they became victims of the still deepening, and soon to be depression.

At no time, did the immorality of an illegal war nor the terrible pre and post-invasion Iraqi civilian casualties cause these late converts to question the crimes being committed in their name. And now, having peddled the neo-con brand of freedom and democracy abroad in the form of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Prison, kidnappings, torture etc and given the one-fingered salute to the rest of the world, what a surprise America's reputation and standing slid down the crap tube into the moral cess pool.

You know the old saying...one deserves the politicians one elects!

So it was a delightful surprise to see Dubya immortalised in the dying days of his presidency by dodging shoes!

Finally, in a few days, the last of the troika of war criminals also known as the three stooges, Bush, Blair and Howard, will ride off into the dustbin of history. He hands over a country sliding further into a likely depression, saddled with a likely US$2 trillion deficit, a national reputation in tatters...what more can a country ask for?

Mission Accomplished!

Sarah Palin is Dick Cheney in drag

2008-09-14T23:50:00.017+10:00

Like many people, I thought Sarah Palin's emergence as fascinating and game changing for Senator John McSame. Choosing her as his running mate, has given the wily Senator a good chance of winning now.

Palin will cement the votes of people who are never going to go for an African-American president, and win over Republicans fed up of Bush and suspicious of McSame. She is also going to cement the votes of Clinton supporters angry that Hillary wasn't anointed as the Democratic presidential nominee.

As an aside, these Clinton supporters are both racist and feminazis in outlook by refusing to transfer their votes to Obama. But of course, they would deny being racist. So a simple test would be to ask if they would have voted for Barack if he had twice Hillary's experience? I think the answer would still be no.

Now this isn't to say Obama is a great candidate either. You may recall that in an earlier post, I said that if he was unable to explain convincingly, what he intended to change, how he would do and pay for it, then voters were entitled to conclude Obama was full of hot air.

As I watched his acceptance speech, I was and still am unconvinced he really can turn the country around. Obama made lots of laudable spending promises but offered insufficient offsetting spending cuts and tax increases to pay for it all.

Tax increases he mentioned absolutely cannot pay for the existing budget deficit let alone the new spending he's promised. The arithmetic is simple. For 2008, spending will exceed income by $410b and for 2009, it will be $407b.

In other words, ignoring new promised spending, Obama must find $407b extra in taxes, or in spending cuts, or a combination of both - just for 2009. With an economy going down the crap tube, increasing corporate and high income personal taxes can't close this gap.

Slashing the bloated defence budget in half will help a lot. But this would be political suicide for him. And, might I add, it will never happen because a militaristic society (which is what America is) will never accept this. As an aside, why do I regard America as a militaristic society?

If you look at the US from a foreigner's perspective, the frequent small town military parades, gun culture, ostentatiously patriotic flag waving, a military budget equalling that of the rest of the world combined, pre-occupation with a candidate's service record (or lack thereof), incessant references to the "commander-in-chief", bellicose threats against countries who refuse to be vassal states etc...all these smack of a militaristic society believing that power comes from the barrel of a gun.

And that's what the Bush regime practised for the last eight years.

Patrick Buchanan, himself an arch conservative (and White House communications director in the Reagan administration), observed recently,

"Americans have many fine qualities. A capacity to see ourselves as others see us is not high among them."

But I digress.

Whether McSame or Obama ends up in the White House, the legacy problems left by Bush are so enormous and deep-seated that real solutions will require more than two terms and an emphatic victory to deliver.

And if McSame and Palin win, real solutions are very likely to recede into oblivion; to be replaced by more neo-con Voodoo economics - you know, the type practised by the Bush regime.

Smelly hypocrisy over Georgia

2008-08-22T21:01:00.013+10:00

When Germany and France jointly argued against Georgia's early entry into NATO, they must have had some inkling what sort of man President Mikhail Saakashvili really was. Recent events in South Ossetia have proven how right the Germans and French were. Had Georgia joined NATO, Western Europe would have been obliged to engage Russia militarily.

Saakashvili has acted exactly like a spoilt little Junior at a zoo with long suffering parents. Provocatively poking a large Russian Bear, Junior gets a mauling in return for his efforts. He then turns around and whines for his parents to punish the Bear for daring to maul him! If I were the parents, I'd hurl the little thug over the fence as a tasty snack for the Bear.

But wait, the boorish and presumptious American relatives side with the little darling because he was schooled in the good old USA, and impressed them with his early talent for boorish and presumptious behaviour. Seeking to curry favour and emulate the American relatives, the French parent convinces himself that Junior indeed was innocent and scolds the Bear. The German parent reluctantly falls in with her French partner. But her half-hearted scolding of the Bear betrays her real views.

Understandably, the Bear is peeved at being treated so unfairly. Why, it remembers a time not too long ago when the American relatives came to the zoo and trashed the Iraqi Skunk's enclosure into rubble. What grand reason did they offer for their dastardly deed? The American relatives didn't like the smell coming from the Skunk's enclosure.

Never mind that they fed the Skunk for years while it was in a ding dong fight with the Persian Cat. Never mind that despite exuding unbearable (pardon the pun) body odours themselves, the American relatives had the cheek to complain about the Skunk's smell. In fact, to its delicate nose, the American relatives smelt far worse than the Skunk, sniffed the Bear.

At least the Skunk had an excuse for smelling bad, the Bear thought. After all, the good lord saw fit to create the Skunk's bad smell as a self-defence mechanism. But in the case of the American relatives, despite having lots of other people's money, they didn't believe in showers, soap and deodorant!

What is a Bear to do?

Echoes of evil in the US military

2008-06-22T17:53:00.017+10:00

I missed a significant but notorious 40th anniversary of the My Lai massacre on 15 March 2008.

As official US government and military propaganda then claimed, the massacre was an isolated spontaneous act of mass murder executed by an infantry company, instigated by a Lt William Calley. But as a recent BBC documentary reported, after an exhaustive search of US National Archive records, the truth was quite the opposite.

The relevant records were hidden and uncatalogued (administrative equivalent of burying secrets) in a small portion of an enormous collection of records chronicling US Army operations in Vietnam. Doubtless, the Pentagon hoped that nobody would find the damning reports of Lt General William Peers' inquiry into the massacre. It was for good reason the Pentagon wished to bury the bodies.

My Lai was only one of three hamlets identified for complete destruction by Col Oran Henderson, a brigade commander of the 23rd US Infantry Division (aka Americal Division). As Lt Gen Peers found, Task Force Barker was ordered to "kill everything," raze crops and dwellings, without exception. More than one company, Charlie, was involved in the terrible massacre. Peers found that Bravo company was also involved.

The general recorded some 400 hours of testimony by personnel of all ranks which were also released to the BBC. The accounts claimed mass rapes of women and girls as young as 12; followed by their executions to eliminate witnesses. Hurling terrified civilians into ditches and machine gunning them, SS Stormtrooper style, was recorded in chilling verbal testimonies. This was "winning the hearts and minds" of the local population. It was about keeping Vietnam free and democratic.

Fortunately, a few people survived by feigning death. Lt Gen Peers travelled to interview the survivors in 1970, and found their testimony corroborated the accounts of mass rapes and murders.

"The first shot hit a baby in the head and I turned around and (was) sick" - one soldier. Another: "Most people in our company didn't consider the Vietnamese human…..A guy would just grab one of the girls there and ….they shot the girls when they got done."

"...when they got done..." refers to raping the girls.

A monstrous cover-up was subsequently orchestrated by the division commander, Maj Gen Sam Koster; one which was eventually blown apart by Lt Gen Peers' investigation. However, the findings of Peers' inquiry were so shocking that the Pentagon suppressed the full truth, and instead, claimed the massacre was an isolated incident.

It was instructive then, as now in the context of Abu Ghraib, Haditha and Mahmudiyah, that of 14 officers charged, only the most junior, Calley, was court-martialled and found guilty. Brigade commander, Col Henderson, was acquitted. Yet, as the archived records and report showed, the atrocity was ordered by the highest levels of the divisional chain of command.

The BBC documentary is both fascinating and yet revealing, in that when Abu Ghraib, Haditha and Mahmudiyah are framed in the context of the My Lai massacre, it really seems little has changed in 40 years. No superior values of democracy and freedom are evident, no humanity is shown to innocent civilians, no honour, integrity and accountability are demonstrated by the top brass, and no exemplary leadership worth emulating is to be found in the White House.

Instead evil, identical to that which escaped in My Lai, seems to be evident in Iraq; apparent to all who aren't wilfully blind, deaf and dumb. This evil is an echo of what others were accused of perpetrating in WW2. It only goes to show that nobody has a monopoly on virtue and morality. And those who claim to be the beacons of "democracy and freedom" bring exactly the opposite to those unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end.

Soon, the world will be rid of the nastiest and blackest of the three stooges, Bush, Blair and Howard, who brought unprovoked death and destruction to Iraq. But sadly, there will be no war crimes trials for these criminals. The only thing that will happen to Bush, Blair and Howard is that they will be consigned to the garbage can of history. Truly, a poor punishment for their war crimes.

Therein lies the fundamental and glaring flaw of our so-called "democracies." Who wants to emulate a hypocritical system that fails to hold accountable those who kill in our name, and with our tacit assent?

Dream ticket to a nightmare presidency

2008-06-05T22:42:00.005+10:00

If ever anyone doubted the unique ability of Hillary Clinton and her die-hard supporters to seek having everything every which way to suit themselves, then doubt no more. Despite Obama winning the required number of delegates to secure nomination, Clinton refused to concede defeat. Instead, she cynically withheld her concession to extract an invitation to run as Obama's vice-president.

After months of hammering Obama's inexperience and therefore lack of fitness to be president, Clinton now turns around and is seemingly prepared to serve under him?! She publicly calls Obama her "friend" after attacking him personally and playing the race card to boot. Who is Hillary trying to fool? What's wrong with this picture - apart from her monumental hypocrisy?

Does the impression of her being "desperately hungry for power" come to mind when Clinton's latest antics are viewed through the prism of her own words? When husband Bill was president, Hillary certainly felt free to be an ex-officio member of his cabinet. Never mind the small irrelevant detail of her not having received the people's mandate to be anything other than the FLOTUS (First Lady Of The United States).

If Obama makes the grave error of taking Clinton on as vice-president, she will absolutely not be content to be a figurehead office holder. Hillary will demand an active vice-presidency and will probably run her own agenda; to the detriment of an Obama administration.

With Clinton only a heartbeat away from the presidency and if I were Obama, I'd be tripling my Secret Service inner perimeter, deploying a Navy SEAL team middle perimeter and capping things off with a Delta Force outer perimeter. Desperate people hungry for power are likely to say and do anything to get what they covet.

Clinton unfit for high office

2008-06-01T09:32:00.012+10:00

I was partially surprised to hear about the decision to restore half of the Florida and Michigan delegates to each Clinton and Obama. The committee making this decision is misguided. They allowed the entire party and its rules to be subverted by a vocal and partisan group of people no different to the despised neo-cons.

Both states were long before, warned about the consequences of not toeing the party line but chose to defy the warning anyway. What is the point of having rules if they can be bent to suit a single candidate; particularly one who had herself endorsed the rules?

How is it fair to other candidates who actually obeyed the rules? Why are Florida and Michigan voters sufficiently exceptional that the rules others obeyed, don't apply to them? What message does this send to the broader community? Is the message "if you don't like the way the game is going, change the rules mid-game" a good one to send all over America?

After watching Clinton's antics over the last few months, I've come to the conclusion that she definitely would not make a good leader nor president. She has displayed some disturbing traits:

Repeatedly lied through her teeth about her being "under fire" in Bosnia. And when confronted with evidence of her lies, claims that she "mis-spoke." So are we to take everything she says as mis-speaking of mis-truths?

Gets other people to play the racial card and then hints the same when it suits her; while denying the same when people get the hint and criticise her for it. The imagery her behaviour invokes is that of a snake or eel slipping through your fingers.

When people criticise her for playing the racial card, she turns around and complains that she's picked upon because she's a woman. She didn't allege Obama was criticised for his friendship with the firebrand pastor because he is black! Memo to Hillary: It isn't about gender or race, it's about character.

Clinton endorsed the rules resulting in Florida and Michigan being excluded but now wants them included because it helps her. If the shoe was on the other foot, would she have agreed to Obama doing the same? Obama wasn't even on the Michigan ballot so counting them would clearly disadvantage him.

A person, regardless of their race or gender, who presumes to exercise the privileges of the presidency, must have integrity, above all. Americans have had eight years of the worst lies with terrible consequences for them and worse, for Iraqis.

But all in all, the picture that has emerged of Clinton is of a person who will say and do anything to win office. She wants to have everything every which way to suit her and her alone. She then has the audacity to claim that her self-serving agenda is really selfless sacrifice for the greater good of all!

Let me be clear that I think Obama has much to do to prove he is in fact worthy of being president. It's all very well to talk about the need for change, to restore America's global standing (assuming that's remotely possible), to bring back values-centered government etc.

Duh, you don't need to be Homer Simpson or a nominee for presidential candidate to figure out these things. I mean half the world outside America has been saying this since Herr Bush stole the presidency from Al Gore. What we're all still waiting for with bated breath, is what exactly Obama is going to do to change things and how is he going to do it?

And as for McCain, well his vision for America is 100 years in Iraq (if necessary). I can see that if he's elected, then Paul Kennedy's (in his book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers) unanswered question of whether the US will decline gracefully or disgracefully will be surely answered as the latter.

After all, not even the US can continue spending enormous treasure without imploding its own economy one day. That day will only hasten faster if McCain is president. By the way, where I live, McCain is a brand of frozen vegetables.

Oh what a wonderful choice of pretenders to the throne this coming presidential election brings. Not America's best, surely?

Armageddon for John Howard

2007-11-24T22:44:00.000+11:00

What a fitting end to the political career of John Howard today has been!

Not only did Chi Hua-Hua John lose the mandate for government following today's general election, he is likely to lose his seat as well. Losing his seat would make Howard only the second sitting PM in Australia's history to suffer such a great humiliation. The first was Stanley Bruce way back in 1929!

Listening to the nonsensical gushing blather from his now feather duster minister, Joe Hockey, about Chi Hua-Hua's "honesty" and "wonderful" leadership, made me puke. I'm not sure many of the Iraqi invasion's hapless civilian casualties would agree - that is if you could resurrect them from the dead to run a poll with them.

For a man given to lying, equivocating, dissembling, dividing and using racial politics to get into and stay in power, it's difficult to regard Howard's leadership as anything other than unprincipled and amoral. Many words have been written and spoken about the reasons for his ascent and now downfall at the hands of voters.

But we do know one thing for sure. The great bulk of voters booted Howard out for economic reasons rather than reasons of principle like involving the country in an illegal war of aggression.

Howard lost the election by losing many seats in marginal electorates in NSW and Queensland. Voters in these seats have lost or are in danger of their homes because of the many interest rate increases during Howard's reign. And as mentioned in an earlier post (John Howard's hubris), adverse personal economic outcomes are what motivated these voters to drive a stake through Howard's black heart.

Does it matter what the fundamental reasons are for Howard's demise? The answer in the short term is no. With the erstwhile governor of the 51st state of the USA deposed, at least Australia will return to being a bit more of a sovereign nation in its own right.

However, if Australia is to avoid engaging in illegal wars and unprincipled acts by its government in future, the incoming PM, Kevin Rudd, must lead the national political, moral and social discourse towards a principled and enlightened place in the sun.

Two war criminals, Blair and now Howard, have been euthanased. Only the biggest and blackest one remains; clinging on for his nasty little life in the White House. Your day for consignment to the garbage can of history is not for long now, Dubya...

Apocalypto for the Neo-Cons

2007-06-24T09:09:00.000+10:00

With the Senate and House back under Democratic Party control, the much-touted troop surge turning in a casualty surge, Rummie consigned to the dustbin of history, Wolfie fired from his cushy World Bank job, Libby transformed from a Cheney rooster into a feather duster, Poodle Tony [Blair] politically euthanased by his party and just maybe Chi Hua-Hua John [Howard] to be booted in his backside by voters, things are going really well for Dubya and his neo-con partners-in-war-crimes.

Even as the great neo-con dream slowly morphs into the putrid nightmare that it really is, we are only beginning to scratch the surface of the monstrous crimes committed under the guise of "democracy and freedom." A most disturbing and morally repugnant revelation to surface recently is Seymour Hersh's article about a patriotic and honourable US general who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal. Hersh's article must be read to understand some of the terribly malignant transformations wrought by the neo-cons.

General Taguba's treatment by factions in a Pentagon politicised by the neo-cons was in a word, disgraceful. Former Chief of Army, General Eric Shinseki, suffered similar treatment following his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on the eve of the Iraq invasion. So it is clear that like the broader American society under neo-con "leadership," hallmark values of a democracy such as honour, integrity, compassion, fairness etc have been twisted into Orwellian caricatures of the exact opposite in the uniformed services.

Taguba says it best in Hersh's article:

"There was no doubt in my mind that this stuff—the explicit images—was gravitating upward. It was standard operating procedure to assume that this had to go higher. The President had to be aware of this."

He said that Rumsfeld, his senior aides, and the high-ranking generals and admirals who stood with him as he misrepresented what he knew about Abu Ghraib had failed the nation.

"From the moment a soldier enlists, we inculcate loyalty, duty, honor, integrity, and selfless service,” Taguba said. “And yet when we get to the senior-officer level we forget those values. I know that my peers in the Army will be mad at me for speaking out, but the fact is that we violated the laws of land warfare in Abu Ghraib. We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and we violated the core of our military values. The stress of combat is not an excuse, and I believe, even today, that those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable."

What was done in the name of "democracy and freedom" has been no different to what Stalin and Hitler did.

For those who deny the moral equivalence (because America is always morally right, of course), I say put yourselves to the test by using the same Nuremburg war crimes trial standards the US and its allies used to judge the Nazis. Go on, be all that you claim to be by proving what's good for the goose is equally good for the gander.

To quote Will Durant,

"A great civilisation is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."

John Howard's hubris

2007-02-12T12:48:00.000+11:00

Australian PM John Howard stunned many people on both sides of the Pacific with his ferocious attack on US Democratic presidential nomination hopeful, Barack Obama. In one fell swoop, Howard has probably helped to harden US and possibly Australian public opinion against Bush's Iraqi disaster rather than help his beseiged master in the White House.

Not only that, imagine the knives that would be out for Howard were he to win re-election in Australia while a Democratic Party ruled both the Congress and White House! Chi Hua-Hua John will surely get booted up his rear end by the rightly outraged Democrats.

In a reverse incident some years back, many Australians were angered when a Bush crony, the then US ambassador to Australia, Tom Schieffer, saw fit to tell Australians that voting for the then Labor Party opposition leader, Mark Latham, would be a disaster for the country. Australians on both sides of politics regarded Schieffer's intervention as arrogant interference in Australia's domestic politics.

Howard's bemusing outburst against Obama is fascinating for its possible motives. Let's be clear, Obama is just one of the majority of US voters, presidential hopefuls, senators and congressmen who oppose America's continuing involvement in Iraq. For example, even Republican senator John Warner (one time secretary for the navy) is opposed to the troop escalation and questions continuing involvement in Iraq.

So what on earth prompted Howard to single out Obama and not for example, Hillary Clinton - who has also pledged to bring US troops home? I think the answer lies in Obama's broad-based bipartisan appeal to US voters. His charisma and perceived sincerity project much greater gravitas and credibility than his brief government experience would suggest.

Howard quite rightly perceived that Obama's views would play very well to a nation cynical about long-time politicians, and therefore have great capacity to shift public opinion even more resolutely against Bush and his policies. Were this to happen, then anyone strongly associated with the war-criminal would also be similarly discredited in the eyes of their own voters.

Let's deconstruct Howard into the hypocrite that he is, shall we? As the BBC reported,

"Mr Howard said any withdrawal of US troops by March 2008 - the date Mr Obama believes should be set - would mean defeat for Washington.

He said that defeat for the US would end hopes for peace in the Palestinian Territories and cause widespread destabilisation in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan."

Well, let's see now. If Chi Hua-Hua Howard was really so concerned about stability in the Middle East, then he would have urged his partner in war crimes not to invade Iraq under the bullshit cover of non-existent NBC weapons. Saudi Arabia and Jordan were a whole lot less jittery when Saddam Hussein was in power - counter-balancing Iran. But after turning Iraq into rubble, Team Neo-Con opened the door for Iran to fill the vacuum.

And if the Neo-Con regime was so concerned about peace in the Palestinian Territories, then they would have forced Israel to abide by UN resolutions on the occupied territories. It also goes without saying that resupplying munitions expended by Israel during its illegal invasion of Lebanon was hardly stabilising conduct.

And of course last but not least, if Iraq is so vital to Australia's national security, then Howard should have far more than the paltry 1400 Australian troops in Iraq, and they should be in the Baghdad frontline instead of the safe southern province. Better still, Howard should demonstrate the courage of his apparent convictions by getting his sons into the army (instead of one working for the US Republican Party), and ensuring they serve in Baghdad. It's all about leadership by example, Chi Hua-Hua John.

Instead, what do we see? Bush's little lap dog yaps from the sidelines, committing very little to his bullshit. What a strange and twisted set of moral values Chi Hua-Hua John possesses.

So how are Australian voters likely to react to Howard's hypocritical dummy spit?

In an earlier post, I observed (False dawn or real sea change?) that Australian and US voters are more similar to each other in their behaviour, compared to their British counterparts. And although Australian voters have proven they won't vote a prime minister out of office on the grounds of moral turpitude, a strengthening of voter perceptions that the Iraqi war is immoral undermines Howard's self-proclaimed national security credentials.

As Howard himself recently claimed, the Coalition government is more trusted than the Labor opposition on economic management and national security. But if Obama hardens US voter sentiment against Bush's policies, Australian voters could similarly react by increasing their distrust of Howard on national security issues.

What about the Howard regime's economic management credentials? In the important swing states of Victoria and New South Wales, mortgage defaults are sky-rocketing due to recent interest rate increases. Mortgagee-in-possession sales have strongly affected the swing voters who gave Howard his last election victory.

And now that these voters have lost their homes, they are certainly feeling less wealthy than before. If my observations of these voters are correct (again see False dawn or a real sea change?), then Howard's economic management credentials have a stake through the heart as far as these voters are concerned. So if Obama rings true with US voters on Iraq and it flows through to Australian voters, then Howard's two advantages over his Labor rival Kevin Rudd, would be neutralised.

A final possible motive for Howard's attack on Obama, is that he fears a parallel appeal with Australian voters in the Labor Party leader, Kevin Rudd. Since Rudd's ascension as leader of the opposition, Howard has been focussing on the former's lack of government experience. Indeed, if Howard can successfully play up voter fears about Rudd's inexperience, then voters are likely to re-elect the devil they know rather than the acolyte they don't know.

On the other hand, if voters see Rudd's inexperience in the same positive light as Obama's - ie the cleanskin untarnished by cynical power broker plays in dim backrooms, then Howard would represent all that is bad about the old ways.

The coming federal election will be a genuine "at-a-crossroad" experience for the country. While there's much to dislike about Rudd, there's even more to dislike about Howard.

Are the Neo-Cons dead yet?

2007-01-08T11:17:00.000+11:00

Will the return of a Democrat controlled congress in last November's congressional elections herald the death of the Neo-Cons and their reign of unfettered freedom to cause murder and mayhem abroad? Or has Team Neo-Con just taken a few rounds to the head; only to rise like Lazarus (or more correctly, Dracula) to cause further mayhem later?

To answer this question, I think we will need to set milestones by which we can measure the real death of Team Neo-Con rather than just non-fatal injury. Critical short term milestones would be:

1. Congress investigates the who, how and why involving the fabrication of false evidence justifying the illegal invasion of Iraq.

2. Following the investigation, Congress indicts people like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Eliot Abrams, John Ashcroft, Gen Geoffrey Miller (set up Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons), Richard Perle and last but not least, Dubya the Decider (of criminal acts).

3. Congress acknowledges the number of Iraqi civilian casualties inflicted during the March 2003 invasion.

4. Congress forces the closure of Abu Ghraib and Bagram Airport prisons and indicts senior military and CIA officers for unlawful assault and murder of detainees.

5. Congress demands the prosecution of US military personnel responsible for the murder of an Al Jazeera journalist during the invasion.

Collectively, these would be tangible evidence of repudiating the unlawful actions of Team Neo-Con, and a genuine move towards restoring the badly sullied reputation of the US both at home and abroad. Although the reign of the Neo-Con regime will be judged as one of America's darkest times; doing the above will also prove the regime to be a transient aberration rather than the norm.

We should be greatly encouraged that Congress has already commenced step 1. We can only hope that the momentum will be sustained for the remaining steps.

Message received but not understood

2006-11-18T18:22:00.000+11:00

Following middle America's repudiation of six years of madness under Team Neo-Con; expressed during the recent congressional elections, I looked for signs of mea culpa breaking out in Neo-Con land. So far, I'm sorry to say their intellectual honesty about lessons learned from the electoral loss is at the same level as their trousers around their ankles.

An article by Charles Krauthammer published in the Washington Post is an excellent case in point. Krauthammer (a deliciously ironic surname) is one of the key Neo-Con "intellectuals" who cheered the illegal and unprovoked invasion of Iraq. In his article, he says,

"Our objectives in Iraq were twofold and always simple: Depose Saddam Hussein and replace his murderous regime with a self-sustaining, democratic government."

Hold on a minute!

Before the invasion in March 2003, Big Dubya, Poodle Tony and Chi Hua-Hua John thumped their chests and told the world Saddam had NBC weapons which posed a clear and present danger to civilisation as we knew it then. In fact, Big Dubya and his then National Security Adviser, Condi Fried Rice, emphatically denied "regime change" was the agenda.

It was only when the sham claims of NBC weapons were comprehensively exposed as a pack of lies, that "regime change" suddenly became the retrospective casus belli. Imagine Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo employing this sort of retrospective justification for war back in the 1940s. Oh, I forgot, they were on the wrong side - that is, the unrighteous and unholy side - how silly of me!

So now, Team Neo-Con and its "intellectuals" hope that by repeating this sort of reverse deductive reasoning as often as they change their underpants, the public will forget the pack of lies peddled to justify prosecution of an illegal war. You know, back in the days of Nazi Germany, Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, is reputed to have said that if one repeats a lie often enough, people will eventually come to accept it as the truth!

Krauthammer also says in his article,

"Americans flatter themselves that they are the root of all planetary evil."

Aside from insulting many decent fellow Americans who opposed the war from the start, Krauthammer has simply got it wrong.

It is the Neo-Cons who flattered themselves by thinking they could impose their brand of "Freedom and Democracy" (you know, the type that brought the world Abu Ghraib, the rape and murder of a teenage girl in Mahmudiya, the murder of a grandfather in Haditha) upon a culture founded on completely different traditions and values.

If it took America 230 years to evolve its brand of democracy, why would it take any less time for an apparently backward country rent by religious and tribal differences? How could people like William Kristol, Francis Fukuyama and Krauthammer, regarded as intellectual giants by that curious mutant branch of Republicanism called Neo-Conservatism, not understand something as obvious as this?

You see, the problem with these guys is very simple. They never have to put their necks where their mouths are, when they call for war to be waged across the globe. You can be sure that if these armchair warriors had to front up on the battlefield, they'd suddenly lose their neo-con courage. There's nothing like confronting the reality of being ventilated with bullets and shrapnel to cause armchair warriors to morph into instant pacifists!

Recalcitrant and unrepentant Neo-Cons should prove their brand of "patriotism," courage and unswerving faith in the moral correctness of their beliefs by volunteering to serve at the frontline in Iraq. Anything less must surely invoke derisive dismissal; aside from the fact that they are simply adding more methane to the Earth's long suffering atmosphere.

False dawn or real sea change?

2006-11-09T18:58:00.000+11:00

By now, it seems clear that the US Democrat party has reclaimed control of the House of Representatives and provisional control of the Senate; after 12 long years of Republican domination. While on the surface much has been made of the Iraq disaster being the principle reason for the Republicans being booted out, a BBC report suggests domestic issues were strong reasons in many states.

Traditional Republican heartland voters seem to have cast their ballots with eyes on the economy and the sex and corruption scandals afflicting mostly Republican congressional representatives in both houses. In the case of the latter, the moral hypocrisy obviously reached intolerable levels for many diehard Republicans. In the case of the former, the heartland voters' sense of standing still economically despite the ruling elite becoming even more insanely wealthy, had finally broken through into their consciousness.

But an important point to note is that for many heartland voters, Iraq was less of an issue than good old personal economic interest. Nothing wrong with that. Except when your country is involved in an illegal war of aggression, THAT should be a real moral issue taking highest priority.

And in other cases where Iraq was the issue, most of the voters' concerns revolved around the war being unwinnable, mismanaged or costing too many US casualties. You seldom hear concerns about the original immorality and illegality of the war. Yet it is these issues that are the underlying drivers of global opposition to US policies.

As an aside, remember how Team Neo-Con and its supporters love to label war critics as un-American if they were US citizens, and anti-American if they were foreigners? Well now that the majority of US citizens have rejected Bush and the neo-con cabal, is this majority now un-American too? Or are the neo-cons the real un-American traitors guilty of subverting the constitutional foundations of their country?

Will the return of the Democrats warrant a change in negative world sentiment against the US? I think the answer depends not only on whether a military withdrawal from Iraq occurs but also if America's claim to being a real democracy plays out in holding Team Neo-Con accountable for its moral and war crimes.

If the new US Congress has the moral fibre to investigate and prosecute the likes of Big Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and General Geoffrey Miller (the culprit directly responsible for Abu Ghraib) for their crimes, then you don't have to be a Neo-Con Einstein to realise the world will get the message that true accountability exists in an American democracy.

This of course, begs the question for what crimes should the Neo-Con cabal be charged? Well, the last time I checked, it is still a war crime to prosecute unprovoked wars of aggression unsanctioned by the UN Security Council. And to test what's good for the goose is good for the gander, the same criteria used by the victorious Allies (of whom the US was one) at the Nuremburg Trials should be applied.

Remember that Hitler and his henchmen committed one of many war crimes when they fabricated an excuse (code named Operation Himmler) to invade Poland in September 1939. There is no difference between what the Nazis did then and what Team Neo-Con did in March 2003. So if ever the new US Congress wanted to prove that their notion of democracy is more than myth and much methane, then they should start cleaning house in earnest. That would silence critics and doubters immediately.

What are the implications for Poodle Tony?

Let's remember that the more highly principled British voters were the first to register their disgust with Blair involving them in an illegal war. They did so even after their American and Australian counterparts actually rewarded their respective leaders for involving them in the same illegal war (see "Blair bleeds a little more").

British voters disciplined Blair by cutting his parliamentary majority from 167 to 66 seats in May 2005. And the poodle has little choice but to relinquish office to Gordon Brown next year, after much pressure from his party colleagues to get out.

In contrast, US voters not only re-elected Big Dubya, they also increased his share of the vote. Likewise in Australia, voters not only returned Chi Hua-hua John to office, they also gave him control of the upper and lower houses of parliament. In short, Australian and American voters appear to be more similar than British voters.

This now brings me to Chi Hua-hua John.

Despite recent polls now showing that a majority of voters think he's a liar, he still enjoys a relatively high rating as preferred leader over the astoundingly unimpressive Opposition leader, Kim Beazley. While this is more a reflection on Beazley than on Howard, it also says a lot about the heartland voter in Australia.

Iraq is simply not a vote losing issue in Australia because the country hasn't suffered any direct casualties in battle. Were Australian soldiers to return home in body bags, then like their US cousins, heartland voters would become concerned over military casualties BUT not over Iraqi casualties. They've had plenty of opportunities to express concern over Iraqi civilian casualties from March 2003 but they weren't deterred from re-electing Chi Hua-hua John in a landslide.

What are we to make of this? The answer lies in understanding how Chi Hua-hua John won the election in November 2004. This self-proclaimed statesman cynically played racial and religious cards to exploit latent racism and xenophobia unhappily rife in many heartland voters.

On the eve of the election, Howard falsely claimed that a boatload of Middle-Eastern asylum seekers (ironically Iraqis fleeing the war in Iraq!) were throwing their children overboard in a vain attempt to stop a Navy ship from towing them out to international waters. He infamously said that these weren't the sort of people fit to enter Australia and that he wouldn't be surprised if some were terrorists.

Note that when Howard made these claims, he had already been informed by the then acting Chief of Defence Forces, Air Marshal Angus Houston, that the claims of children being thrown overboard were simply untrue. But of course, this didn't stop the self-proclaimed US deputy sheriff from smearing and demonising a boatload of people fleeing from a war he helped to start.

Uttering these disgraceful lies boosted his security and "tough on terrorists" image. This played very well to a heartland rife with resurgent racism and xenophobia, and so these voters went on to deliver a landslide victory to this odious character. How's that for a stunning demonstration of the "fair go" cultural value Chi Hua-hua John now demands newcomers adopt if they wish to become citizens and permanent residents?

So without Australian military casualties, what will unseat Chi Hua-hua John? I'm sorry to say that it'll be crass personal economic interest on the part of the voter. In the absence of a moral imperative driving voting decisions, it is most often the economic imperative that will dominate. In such situations, only when people lose jobs in a recession or lose homes when interest rates are too high, do governments lose office.

If inflation continues unabated and the Reserve Bank of Australia is forced to increase interest rates a few more times closer to the next election around November 2007, there will be a good chance Australian voters will punish Howard. Whether they do so sufficiently for him to lose office remains to be seen.

But they have clearly demonstrated that illegal wars and immoral leaders take a back seat to good old personal economic interest.

The day the whole world changed...for Iraqis

2006-09-11T18:30:00.000+10:00

As the fifth anniversary of the WTC attack rolls around; accompanied by the usual narcissistic commemorations in the US; spare a thought for weak, or humble or innocent Iraqis who were crushed underfoot by a rampaging cabal of war criminals with so much blood on their hands.

Remember Team Neo-Con invaded Iraq in 2003 claiming that the country possessed NBC (Nuclear, Biological & Chemical) weapons and intended to use them against America. But US weapons inspector, David Kay, appointed by Bush himself, found no evidence they existed as claimed. Then Bush claimed the invasion was sparked by Iraq's involvement in the WTC attack. But again, a US Senate investigation found this to be false. Then Bush repudiated an earlier declaration that the war wasn't about regime change; and said it was to liberate Iraqis from their tyrant.

So despite Team Neo-Con changing their reasons for an illegal war as often as they changed their underpants, surely, these child casualties understood America only wanted the best for them rather than their country's oil...

Photo: BBC/AP

And for recalcitrant and sceptical Iraqis, a little remedial instruction was all that was required. First, they were given time out to reconsider their politically incorrect views...

Photo: The New Yorker/AP

Then after time out to reconsider their politically incorrect views, cuddly puppies happily assisted these slow learners to mend their ways...

Photo: The New Yorker/AP

But of course, particularly naughty and extra slow learners needed firmer instruction. After all, as the good lord said, "Spare the rod and spoil the child..."

Photo: The Washington Post/AP

However, despite the best efforts of America's finest, some were truly incorrigible. Never mind, they were just despatched to the nearest cemetery with America's best "Have a nice day" hometown send off...

Photo: ABC/AP

Bringing democracy and freedom to darkened cities like Fallujah was also part of the good lord's work. So winning hearts and minds was ever so much more important than preserving material things like homes and businesses...

Photo: www.globalpolicy.org

Every so often, a little collateral damage occurred. And that was too bad. But it was a small price to pay because the road to hell is paved with good intentions and the blood of the innocent and defenceless...

Photo: www.iraqsnuclearmirage.com

Today, many who still support Bush delude themselves into believing that people hate them for their stand on "democracy and freedom."

The reality is that people don't give a rat's brass razoo what Team Neo-Con does inside America. But when Bush's style of "democracy and freedom" is imposed upon non-Americans - whether they want it or not - why is it a surprise that some refuse to fall on bended knee in gratitude?

Rest in peace, victims of George W Bush and Team Neo-Con. You are remembered even though the world's beacon of Truth, Justice and the Neo-Con way cares not to do so.

Chinese ambassador tells US to "Shut Up!"

2006-08-19T14:31:00.000+10:00

When I first heard a BBC radio broadcast in which China's ambassador to the UN in Geneva said:

"It's better for the US to shut up," he said. "Keep quiet. It's much, much better."

I was both surprised and delighted that someone had finally responded to the Bush regime's hypocrisy in language that Team Neo-Con may better understand. What provoked the ambassador, Mr Sha Zu Kang, to respond in such refreshingly practical language?

Repeated whinings by US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, that China was consistently under-reporting its defence spending, and that such large expenditures posed a threat to global stability! Can you beat the sheer audacity and hypocrisy of this man? Coming from the world's chief destabiliser bar none, it's a source of much bemusement, to say the least.

For more detailed background on this issue, please refer to earlier posts on this blog, "The old whiff of rank hypocrisy" and "Who is the real threat today?" At the heart of Rummie's complaints, is the need to justify America's continued gargantuan defence spending to voters.

Make no mistake, Team Neo-Con doesn't give a rat's brass razoo what the rest of the world thinks. After all, if that wasn't the case, Iraq wouldn't be the rubble strewn and wretched wasteland it is today.

One of the things driving Rumsfeld is something called mid-term congressional elections looming in November this year. Amid rising voter disgust over the Republican Party corruption scandals, and the ongoing disaster of Iraq, Team Neo-Con is practising the political scoundrel's time honoured tactic of pointing to some external threat to divert attention away from internal scandals.

The short term political agenda of Team Neo-Con also dovetails with the ruling civilian and military establishment's long term agenda of sustaining gargantuan defence budgets. There's nothing like creating a state of fear in a country's citizens to receive a blank cheque to spend big on defence while eliminating real democracy and freedom to scrutinise the integrity and morality of those who presume to lead.

But hey, don't take my word on it. Read Prof Chalmers Johnson's book "The Sorrows of Empire" to learn how many decent Americans have been hoodwinked into allowing their beloved country to be transformed into an Imperial Empire, so despised by those on the receiving end of its behaviour.

Perhaps they may understand that non-Americans actually don't dislike the US because, as Bush claims, "we [Americans] stand for freedom and democracy." I mean, some poor working stiff scratching out a living in some place outside America doesn't have the time nor interest to give a rat's brass razoo what happens in America. After all, how would Bush being the US president affect them if all he did was rampage around in the US?

Really, it's only when Bush and his henchmen and henchwomen inflict themselves upon other countries, that non-Americans hate what is being done to them by the US government. This is why it is a treat when people like Ambassador Sha bluntly put Team Neo-Con back into its box.

Just as Team Neo-Con doesn't take lectures from anyone else, China (whether you support them or not) doesn't need lectures from a very sooty black pot!

Case for a multi-polar world

2006-08-17T12:51:00.000+10:00

An oft-heard whine we hear from Team Neo-Con and its supporters is that the rest of the world refuses to fall on bended knee in obsequious gratitude for deliverance from the bad guys of the world. Team Neo-Con is right about the rest of the world having an aversion to genuflecting. But they are dead wrong about the reasons.

To understand the reasons, we need to go back to Team Neo-Con's holy day. 11th September 2001, is often quoted by many as "The Day the Whole World Changed." For the Bush regime, it gave them the opportunity to launch a crusade to smite those who were not with them in their holy mission to deliver us from the bad guys of the world. Of course, the irony of Team Neo-Con sounding an awful lot like the Islamic Fascists they wish to kill, is lost on these morons.

As an aside, the narcissistic pomposity of "The Day the Whole World Changed" grates on many as well. Anyway, let's try a little perspective calibration on this holy day of justification for Team Neo-Con...

1st September 1939
Germany invades Poland, thereby sparking WW2; in which about 56 million people died (vs 2,752 deaths in the WTC attack). Now that's what most people would regard as a world changing day.

20th March 2003
America invades Iraq in a pre-emptive strike to destroy non-existent NBC weapons. British medical journal The Lancet estimates about 100,000 civilian deaths. I'd say the whole world changed for these casualties and their families.

With just two simple examples, I wonder how far off the zero reading would the WTC attack register on the scale of calamitous events in world history?

In reality, the WTC attack simply provided justification for Team Neo-Con to accelerate transformation of the US from an admired nation to that of a rabid mongrel biting anyone not subscribing to Pax Americana's imperial agenda. If anything, I'd suggest a minor world changing day occurred not on 11th September 2001 but on 9th December 2000. That was when a Republican-dominated US Supreme Court stopped a statewide ballot recount in Florida; thereby giving the presidency and a free reign to terrorise, to Bush.

But I digress.

Bush supporters often love to ask if Bush critics prefer a world dominated by China. My answer to them is that they're asking the wrong question. The real question is whether we prefer a uni-polar or a multi-polar world?

You see, we have been proven wrong in assuming that a uni-polar world would be relatively peaceful, led by a benevolent hyper-power, the US. Under US "leadership," the invasion of Iraq scandalised and radicalised a good number of moderate Muslims sufficiently to move Islamic militants into the mainstream.

As the US government's own CIA has admitted many times, Iraq was not a centre of terrorism pre-invasion. But now it is. Iraq has also sparked off home-grown terrorism elsewhere in the world, despite the self-serving declarations to the contrary by Team Neo-Con's pet poodle Tony Blair. Excellent own goals, Einsteins!

So in the absence of a wise and benevolent hyper-power leading a uni-polar world, an infinitely better alternative is a multi-polar world. Greater independent assertiveness on the part of the EU, Russia, China and India will all help in ring fencing a rabid Team Neo-Con. And while these states cannot match the military might of Team Neo-Con, they do possess a reasonable degree of economic and financial leverage over the US.

Provided they are prepared to threaten economic mutually assured destruction, it's possible that the rabid mongrel may pause from biting everyone for a while. This is a lesser evil than the status quo.

Neo-con freedom and democracy for Lebanon

2006-08-16T15:03:00.000+10:00

As a BBC article tells us, Big Dick Cheney was the god-father from whom Israel sought approval to launch its operations in Lebanon. Once Big Dick gave his blessing, "Bush was never a problem," the article quotes a source as saying. That accords with long-held perceptions by many that the real president is Big Dick Cheney and his puppet is Big Dubya.

Imagine this comic nightmare scenario. The world suffers for eight years under Big Dick Cheney ruling by proxy through Big Dubya. Then Big Dick runs for president and wins two terms in his own right thereafter. Wow, the world gets 16 years of Big Dick! Someone please pass me a Tylenol...I just had a frisson of terror...

Black humour aside, now that there's a ceasefire in Lebanon, let's check out some of the results of the "birth pangs" of neo-con "freedom and democracy in Lebanon" (as Condi Fried Rice so eloquently put it), shall we?

In order to build a new, free and democratic Lebanon, Team Neo-Con says it's vital to thoroughly demolish the old one first...

Credit: BBC

Part of the democratic cleansing process demands all forms of terrorists (NB not neo-con approved freedom fighters) be rendered dead, as was convincingly demonstrated in Qana, Lebanon...

Credit: AP/Nasser Nasser

And in the "War on Terror," it's absolutely critical to ensure Islamic Fascists are rendered dead with extreme prejudice using precision guided weapons supplied by the good guys, the Neo-Con Christian Fascists holding court in the White House and Downing Street...

Credit: Jeroen Kramer

You see, Team Neo-Con believes that if you don't get them when they're young, they'll grow up into American-hating Islamic Fascists; bent on returning the favour to the greatest messianic empire on Earth!

Terrorists and Freedom Fighters

2006-08-03T16:25:00.000+10:00

Consider the following actions of a political organisation:

1. Attacking British military and police personnel
2. Bombing a hotel and killing 91; mostly civilians
3. Assassinating a British politican and peer
4. Murdering 99 civilians over a sample 4 month period

Would the George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard regimes waste any time in designating it a terrorist organisation worthy of a free holiday in Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib prisons? Would such a bunch of murderers earn Dubya's epithet as Islamic Fascists? You bet.

Would these terrorists deserve to be hunted down all over the world and when caught, brought before Dubya's military tribunals to be found guilty and executed? You bet - especially if you're a pure as the driven snow Neo-Con Christian Fascist!

Now, here's a little more detail behind each of the terrorist actions listed above.

1. A Jewish terrorist organisation called Irgun, killed numerous British military and police personnel from 1944 through 1948.
2. Irgun claimed responsibility for bombing the King David Hotel; causing the 91 deaths.
3. In 1944, Lord Moyne was assassinated in Cairo by Irgun's sister organisation, Lehi.
4. From April 1939 to July 1939, 99 civilians were shot dead or blown to bits by Irgun.

Yet today, when Hezbollah and Hamas are doing no more than emulating Irgun's business model, they stand condemned as terrorists and "unlawful" combatants by the US, UK and Israel. While Hezbollah's and Hamas' terrorist actions cannot be excused nor condoned, sadly, the hypocritical amnesia of the US, UK and Israel furnishes convenient cover to reduce Lebanon into rubble.

Now, if Winston Churchill (who was a friend of Lord Moyne) had remained in power after WW2, and had reduced Jewish held towns and villages in Palestine to rubble - in an effort to kill off Irgun (just as Israel justifies its actions in Lebanon now), would Condi Fried Rice have regarded this as no more than "birth pangs" of a new Israel? Hmm, somehow I think not!

Let's talk a bit more about Irgun. When it was most active against the British, Irgun was led by none other than Menachem Begin. It was Begin who ordered the bombing of the King David Hotel. Considering that such an act today would surely have earned him odium to perhaps the same level as that reserved for Osama bin Laden, Begin instead became the sixth Prime Minister of Israel while leader of the right wing Likud Party.

Under his watch, Begin charged Ariel Sharon with the task of greatly expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied terrorities - the cause of much enmity between Israelis and Palestinians for such a long time. Then in 1982, with Begin still as PM and Sharon as Defence minister, Israel embarked on the ill-advised invasion and occupation of Lebanon. It was during this invasion, that large numbers of Palestinian refugees were massacred in the Sabra and Shatila camps by Lebanese Christian militias allied with Israel.

So things aren't really as objective and balanced as the US, UK and Israel would have the world believe. In their fantasies, the "good guys" have a higher moral standing than the "bad guys". The high moral standing of the good guys allows them to commit war crimes directly or through proxies like Israel, against unarmed civilians; while dismissing the deaths as "birth pangs" of a new Lebanon. Yeah right. Some birth that's going to be in the rubble strewn country!

Yet the reality is that we in the west, not only failed to capture, try and execute an unlawful combatant and terrorist called Menachem Begin, we recognised him as the lawful prime minister of Israel. We compound our hypocrisy by green lighting the systematic destruction of a friendly and democratic Lebanon, all in the name of destroying Hezbollah; an organisation formed to protect Lebanese Shia Muslims during Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

The US, UK and Australia among others, lauded Menachem Begin as a Freedom Fighter but regard Sheik Hassan Nasrallah (present leader of Hezbollah) as a terrorist. One person's freedom fighter is another's terrorist. Moral hypocrisy founded on expedient values has no bounds in the White House, Downing Street and Kirribilli House, don't you think?

Republicans battered

2006-05-18T01:14:00.000+10:00

A recent article in the Washington Post reports that US public confidence in the Republican Party has crashed to similar levels of their Dear Leader, Dubya the Deceiver - sorry, the Decider.

Many Republicans will say that it's all because of the Iraqi disaster. That may be one strong reason. But of course, the same people won't admit to fervidly baying for the invasion in the first place. Their collective amnesia also prevents them from recalling that most ridiculous of intellectual and moral cop outs - "support the president no matter what, in time of war." This stupid blind loyalty also affected many Democrats.

To those who questioned the veracity of the casus belli fabricated by Bush et al, protested against the blatant illegality of the invasion, the Bushie Brown Shirts called them un-American traitors (if they were Americans) or anti-American enemies of the greatest messianic empire on earth.

What is a democracy if its citizens cannot demand honest answers to questions of great import? Surely a decision to invade another country and visiting death and destruction upon its inhabitants must be scrutinised for clarity of focus and integrity of purpose. That such attempts to discern whether the president is behaving with integrity were derided, and worse, characterised as traitorous or anti-American, should have rung alarm bells in the minds of the dullest supporters of Bush.

This brings me back to the notion of blind loyalty. Contrary to popular belief, Adolf Hitler actually won power through the ballot box. He was voted into office, and once there, proceeded to change the nature of pre-war Germany's constitutional processes to eventually gain and maintain dictatorial powers. Does this sound familiar to what we have seen Bush do since gaining office?

Does anyone seriously believe that in pre-war Germany, the majority of the population were opposed to Hitler? Even during the early years of WW2, Hitler enjoyed great popular support - while the going was good with the Northern and Western European conquests. Great evil was done in their name, and the German people were complicit by giving their blind loyalty to Hitler. It isn't difficult to imagine them exhorting doubters to "support the Fuhrer no matter what, in time of war," is it?

Since it has long been made abundantly clear that the Iraq invasion was based on deliberately fabricated "evidence," Bush supporters need to look in the mirror and honestly ask if they still believe in leaving their moral and intellectual compasses at the White House hat room when a war criminal for a president wants to invade another country.

I should remind them that at the Nuremberg trials, Germany's invasion of Poland was judged by the Allies (including the US, of course) to be a war crime. One of the reasons was Hitler fabricated an excuse to invade Poland; thereby sparking WW2.

In 2003, Bush emulated Hitler and fabricated an excuse to invade Iraq. While erstwhile Bush supporters contemplate their own complicity through blind loyalty, the world still waits for the 21st century's Nuremberg trials.

The Real Nazi speaks

2006-03-20T23:38:00.000+11:00

Donald Rumsfeld, otherwise known as the US Secretary of Defence, declared recently that the US pulling out of Iraq would be tantamount to handing back a postwar Germany to the Nazis. Coming from the man who together with Big Dick, helped prosecute the illegal invasion of Iraq, it's a bit rich.

In truth, I don't see how a departure could be equated to handing back a postwar Germany to the Nazis. After all, if Team Neo-Con adopted the Nazi tactic of fabricating a pretext for invading another country, Poland, that would equate them to Nazis, wouldn't it? And so really, a US pullout is equal to the Nazis leaving Poland.

Notwithstanding the terrible rubble strewn and chaotic wasteland into which the new Neo-Con Nazis have turned Iraq.

That old whiff of rank hypocrisy

2006-03-13T00:08:00.000+11:00

In recent remarks, Condi Rice warned that the US and its regional allies (read as principally Australia and Japan),

"have a joint responsibility and obligation to produce conditions in which the rise of China will be a positive force in international politics, not a negative force."

Let's understand what she really means by saying this.

The US leadership is alarmed at the rapid growth of China's economic and political influence in East Asia, concomitant with its own rapid decline in political and economic clout in the region. Understanding all too clearly from lessons learned during its own rise, the US fears China will follow in its footsteps of building a gargantuan military machine on the back of its economic wealth.

For if China were to really follow the US model of using the military as the spear carrying arm of corporate America, Team Neo-Con fears the US cannot retain its dominance of the global economy. And with its loss of economic dominance, decline of military power would eventually follow. After all, a US$491.5b military budget for 2006 has to be funded somehow. More about this later.

The "conditions" to which Rice refers, is diplomatic speak for that quaint American politico-military concept of "containment" of enemies. During the Cold War, Washington sought to build ring fences of allied countries around America's strategic competitors (to use a more modern day term for enemies). It was believed that with a ring fence around its enemies, the USSR and China, these threats to truth, justice and the American way would be "contained." Let's digress a little to understand the context of how the ring fence for China is being constructed.

Today, despite India not being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT), the Bush regime agreed to provide nuclear technology to the Indians anyway. Some 40% of India's nuclear facilities (which are obviously dedicated to military activities) won't be subject to any inspections or external review despite the US providing the promised technology. Hardly a positive step for preventing nuclear weapons proliferation, is it?

Yet if it's verboten for Iran to even think of building nuclear weapons, why is it acceptable to transfer nuclear technology to an India already possessing nuclear weapons? Likewise kid gloves treatment has also been extended to Pakistan despite this country peddling nuclear weapons technology around the world. What's driving Team Neo-Con's agenda?

For India and Pakistan, they form the south-western portions of the ring fence around China (click on map below for a larger image). So despite having broken the same rules Dubya wishes to enforce upon Iran and North Korea, they are feted rather than having a finger and stick wagged at them. Hmm, do you detect a whiff of rank hypocrisy here?

Team Neo-Con tells us that Iran is a state-sponsor of terrorism. Iran has indeed been providing weapons and training to Iraqi resistance forces. Bad boys. But you know, Iran is only practising what the US had done in South America, Laos and Afghanistan. Indeed, in the case of Afghanistan, the USSR invaded a sovereign country, and ended up having to fight resistance forces armed and trained by the US.

By the way, that is how Public Enemy Number One, Osama bin Laden, was created. He is a creature of the US government, raised originally to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Likewise, Public Enemy Number Two, Saddam Hussein was nurtured to keep the pesky Iranians at bay! Funny about that whiff of rank hypocrisy. It seems to follow some people all over the world, doesn't it?

Let's briefly return to the topic of military budgets. In a recent news report, China announced that its 2006 military budget would rise by 14.7% to US$35b. While the country justifies its military expenditure as remaining similar to historical percentages of GDP, there is little doubt that the true budget is higher.

And of course, that old speaker of nothing but truth and wisdom, Donald Rumsfeld, was reported telling a security conference in 2005,

"China appears to be expanding its missile forces, allowing them to reach targets in many areas of the world, not just the Pacific region, while also expanding its missile capabilities here in the region. Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder: Why this growing investment?"

Using the Pentagon's own self-serving estimate of China's true spending to be two to three times the declared budget, the true Chinese military budget could be between US$70b to US$105b. Big and worrisome, huh? Compared to the US$491.5b 2006 defence budget for the US, I think the neo-cons should take a Tylenol and lie down.

Interestingly, a Jane's Defence Weekly article tells us that the US defence budget is very close to being equal to the combined defence budgets for the Rest of the World! If this fact alone isn't sufficient to silence critics of Chinese defence spending, then it exposes them for what they really are - people with self-serving agendas.

By the way, I should point out that if China had the same per capita expenditure on defence as the US, the 2006 Chinese defence budget would be US$2,181b rather than the highest Pentagon estimate of $105b. So should we really be worried that a nation of 1.308 billion people has a defence budget just 21% that of a country of 295 million people?

Do we remember when China last deployed its aircraft carrier battle groups to launch air strikes in support of the invasion of Iraq? Answer: Never, since they have no carriers.

How many troops did that war mongering nation, China, send into battle to smash Iraq into the rubble strewn wasteland that it is today? Answer: None, since they didn't buy the lies peddled by Bush et al.

Exactly how many NBC weapons did Bush's own appointed weapons inspector find in that wretched wasteland? Answer: Exactly zero, since there were none, as David Kay, himself concluded.

Given that the US has a record bar none, for engaging in direct and proxy wars around the world, has recently again declared China to be a strategic competitor, and has been encircling them, I'd say that the Chinese had better wake up to the threat of 10,600 nuclear warheads, 12 carrier battle groups etc ringing them. Because the global top dog doesn't look like it will give up its status without a fight.

After all, there are 491.5 billion reasons and over 100,00 dead Iraqi civilians to support this point of view.

Two sides of the same bad penny

2006-02-12T20:59:00.000+11:00

In an article about the US House of Representatives' forthcoming report into the Katrina disaster, the Washington Post tells us that the Select Committee

"...lays primary fault with the passive reaction and misjudgments of top Bush aides, singling out Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security Operations Center and the White House Homeland Security Council..."

The Committee itself was comprised only of Republicans (the Democrats refused to participate claiming the investigation would be a partisan whitewash), who still saw fit to judge the Bush regime's response as a total failure of leadership. However, it seems the Committee failed to compel the White House to hand over documents and also won't hold any White House official accountable. What a surprise this will be, if it turns out to be correct.

Of Bush, the report said that

"...'earlier presidential involvement could have speeded the response' because he alone could have cut through all bureaucratic resistance."

Makes you sort of wonder about this Emperor, doesn't it? After all, he was able to invade a country halfway around the world and smash it into rubble, in an attempt to root out mythical NBC weapons but back at El Rancho Busho, he couldn't seem to bring himself to evacuate helpless US citizens despite ample warning (as noted by the report) of impending disaster.

It seems like two sides of the same bad penny, doesn't it?

I wonder if history will remember him kindly?

Pakistan's complaints of double standards

2005-11-11T11:15:00.000+11:00

I choked over my curry when Pakistani president Musharraf complained recently that the world showed double standards by not donating as much towards the Kashmir earthquake relief, as in the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. His claims that the Kashmir earthquake was much worse than the Asian tsunami, left me quite confused.

By his own estimates, some 70,000 to 80,000 Kashmiris are estimated to have died. As at 31 January 2005, the tsunami death toll estimates were reported to be 233,000 (Indonesia), 31,000 (Sri Lanka), 16,400 (India), 5,400 (Thailand) and 520 (Others) for a total of 286,200. So either my arithmetic is wrong about 286,200 being greater than 70,000 to 80,000, or Musharraf's arithmetic applies a significant non-Pakistani discount to the Asian tsunami death toll!

Nonetheless, Musharraf may well be right that donations aren't as forthcoming as for other disasters. But he should ask why this may be the case. I think the reasons for less than generous donations may be due to what we know about Pakistan.

For example, the much hated Taleban were strongly supported by Pakistan's secret intelligence service, the ISI, for many years. Not doing things by half, the ISI also provides funding, training and weapons to militant Muslim terrorists in Kashmir. These are the same terrorists who conduct bombing campaigns in Indian controlled Kashmir and elsewhere in India, including the Indian parliament.

Pakistani religious schools called madrassas, are home to extremist Islamic imams preaching violent Jihad against non-believers. Indeed, most if not all of the London suicide bombers spent time in these schools. It seems Musharraf believes one can be half-pregnant when it comes to dealing with terrorists.

Then there are the hundreds of millions of dollars Pakistan lavishes on its nuclear weapons program. Would his country be short of cash for earthquake relief today, if not for the money spent on building nuclear weapons?

While it may well be understandable for Pakistan to feel the need to field such weapons due to India's similar arsenal, it's a bit rich to then turn around and accuse the rest of the world of being reluctant to cover shortfalls caused by such weapons expenditure!

Peru sticks it to Japan

2005-11-10T10:43:00.000+11:00

It was fascinating to learn about Peru standing up to plain old Japanese imperialism over fugitive ex-president Alberto Fujimori's pending extradition back to Peru. As the BBC reports, Peru will downgrade its diplomatic ties with Japan by withdrawing its ambassador indefinitely.

Wanted on charges of corruption and human rights abuses, Fujimori fled to Japan in 2000 and was promptly granted citizenship by the Koizumi regime. This obviously allowed Fujimori to escape being held accountable for his alleged crimes.

While it may be understandable for some countries to refuse extradition in cases where capital punishment could result, it appears that this isn't the case for Fujimori. Instead, the Koizumi regime is simply applying a "citizen of Rome" privilege. ie a Japanese citizen is above the law of another country even if that citizen commits a crime in that country.

Not only did the Japanese regime provide cover for Fujimori, it now seeks to pressure Chile into refusing Peru's extradition request! No wonder the Peruvian government is mad as hell with Japan.

This sort of parochial attitude on the part of Japan also underlies its continuing friction with Asian countries over the lack of an official governmental apology for Japanese war crimes. Like Team Neo-Con in the US, the Koizumi regime's arrogance will eventually return to bite them on their collective behind.

Shining example of Neo-Con democracy

2005-11-02T11:14:00.000+11:00

It was fascinating to read about how since the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Republican dominated US Senate (and House of Representatives for that matter) has failed in its role to provide the necessary check and balance to a rogue Bush administration.

Led by a Republican Senator Pat Roberts, the Senate Intelligence Committee has so far failed to conduct an important second phase investigation into how the Bush administration used (misused) intelligence to prosecute the illegal invasion. Yet when the Democrat's Senate leader, Senator Harry Reid tried to force Roberts to do his job, the Senate majority leader, Republican Senator Bill Frist's response was a shining example of democracy at work - neo-con style. As a Washington Post article reported,

Frist angrily denounced the move, charging that "the United States Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership." He told reporters that he has never as majority leader "been slapped in the face with such an affront to the leadership of this grand institution."

Frist called the closed session "a pure stunt" by Reid, Durbin and the Democratic leadership.

"This is an affront to me personally," he said. "It's an affront to our leadership. It's an affront to the United States of America. And it is wrong."

Frist sharply criticized Reid personally, saying he could never trust the Democratic leader again.

If dear old Bill Frist doesn't want to be "affronted" in such a way, then all he needs to do is do his job by holding the Bush regime accountable in the way the Constitution intended the Senate to function. Otherwise the real affront caused to the American people is that a cabal in the White House took their country to war on a pack of lies. And it's getting away with that war crime, and torture, and unlawful extra-judicial murder of detainees, and "collateral damage" such as 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualties, and sending troops to die for lies, and...the list goes on.

And oh by the way, Bill Frist would know all about trust wouldn't he? After all, he's currently under investigation by the US Securities Exchange Commission and the Justice Department for possible violations of insider trading law!

I take it this isn't the type of democracy Big Dubya wants the rest of the darkened world to adopt...

Traitors and patriots in Big Dubya's world

2005-10-31T12:07:00.000+11:00

After reading the Washington Post's account of how and why a CIA agent's name was leaked to the press by the Bush administration, one can't help but conclude George Orwell's Big Brother is the role model for the Bush administration.

In Orwell's book, 1984, Big Brother is a government that reverses notions of good and bad, right and wrong, honourable and dishonourable, and most fundamentally, truth and lie. In order to maintain continuing subservience of a wretched populace, Big Brother manufactures wars, real and imagined, to evoke a sense of perpetual siege. Citizens daring to question Big Brother are declared traitors, tried and executed.

In 2005, we learn that two citizens in Dubya's world, dared to live up to their oaths to serve the nation and its Constitution. Joseph Wilson served his country as both an ambassador and on the National Security Council of the Clinton administration. His wife, Valerie Plame, was the CIA agent unmasked in a fit of spiteful neo-con pique by Big Dick Cheney's minion, the ridiculously named "Scooter" Libby.

Wilson's crime was to refute as false, Big Dubya's claims that Iraq obtained uranium ore from Niger. He did so after an investigative trip on behalf of the CIA. In retaliation, Big Dubya and his puppeteer, Big Dick, allowed or even worse, possibly directed Libby to tell some journalists that Wilson had been on a boondoggle jaunt to Niger instigated by his wife, and unmask Plame as a CIA agent. Big Dubya's and Big Dick's intent was to discredit Wilson and his claims by calling into question the circumstances and legitimacy of his jaunt to Niger.

Now I don't know about you, but I think the allegations of a boondoggle trip to Niger would have struck anyone with any idea of the world outside the US, as downright ridiculous and laughable. For goodness sake, Niger is a land-locked country in West Africa's Sahara region. It has lots of sand but certainly no surf! To put it politely, it's a crap hole for a vacation.

That people took Big Dubya's and Big Dick's smear seriously shows how geographically illiterate and travel challenged they are. In Orwellian speak, double plus ungood.

Instead, people should have asked what is the nature of true patriotism?

Is it to order men and women on an illegal and immoral invasion of another country based on a pack of lies? Is it to prosecute a war in which over 100,000 Iraqi civilians become casualties? Is it to visit desolation upon some country whose leader you dislike?

Or is it to seek and tell the truth, and to call to account those who would trash the fundamental principles upon which their nation was founded? Is it to consider war as the last resort in solving problems rather than the first?

Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame were two genuine patriots seeking to serve their nation and Constitution in spite of a corrupt and treasonous leadership. They understood that their ultimate allegiance is to the country and its Constitution rather than the president of the day engaged in illegal conduct.

But for their patriotism, they were punished by an Orwellian regime bent on prosecuting an illegal war, subverting the Constitution, lying to the nation, endangering a covert agent, and believing itself answerable to nobody.

That is truly treason.

Sad consequences for dealing in death

2005-10-27T03:13:00.000+10:00

Recently, the Singapore government rejected appeals for clemency for an Australian drug trafficker sentenced to death. It was effectively the end of the road for the 25 year old Vietnamese Australian man. For a concise summary of his case and of efforts to secure a commutation of the sentence, read a report by the ABC.

What was more interesting was how this issue has sparked some ill-informed and in some cases, blatantly racist responses from average Australians. Some of the juicier responses (quoted verbatim with uncorrected spelling and grammatical errors) to topical questions (WHAT do you think of the death penalty? Is it an effective deterrent to serious crime? Or is it an unacceptable punishment, no matter what the crime?) posed on the News.com.au site follow.

A general observation I'd make is that Singapore's tough drug laws have been around since 1973. Before every commercial flight and cruise ship arrives in Singapore, passengers are reminded of the severe penalties for drug trafficking. These laws and their strict enforcement are well-known around the world. So it's frankly irrelevant whether Australians oppose these laws as the Singapore government doesn't make public policy to satisfy Australians. Everyone wishing to enter the country is expected to obey those laws, just as the reverse is true.

From: Scott
Comment: How is it that a man who smuggles drugs gets the death penalty, yet a Bali terrorist that kills hundreds, gets a 5 years suspended jail term?????

Scott, you may be a little challenged in geography and logic, so let me help you out. It's entirely possible for a man to get the death penalty for drug smuggling and a Bali terrorist to get a 5 year suspended jail term. That's because the Republic of Singapore has a legal system that is completely independent of that of the Republic of Indonesia; of which Bali is a province!

From: Steve
Comment: My best mate died of a heroin o/d caused by people like this. But still, taking more life doesn't solve the problem, even though he's not a real Australian we should still bomb Singapore and occupy their country for this act of aggression against an Australian citizen.

Steve, Australia would know all about bombing and occupying a country on the flimsiest of reasons, wouldn't it? You've had some practice lately. But seriously, suggesting Singapore be bombed will get you detained for inciting terrorism. But be sure to do this in Singapore. At least your family will know where you are, unlike Howard's proposed anti-terrorism laws. If you want a cure for drug addictions and overdoses, then treat the real cause by not trafficking drugs in the first place.

From: Bren
Comment: It makes me sick seeing fellow Australian in death penalty overseas, when if those countries' people come here and do crime we just throw them in prison and they are well looked after. Why don't we introduce death penalty here as well and let's see what they think?

Bren, some of your fellow Australians are the real reason for your sickness. It is they who choose to traffick drugs despite frequent warnings against doing so every time their airplane lands in Singapore. I daresay foreigners would think that it's about time Australia became serious about stopping drugs by introducing the death penalty.

From: Neil B
Comment: The Singapore Government is an unelected dictatorship with no real legitimacy. How can the execution of a drug trafficker be justified by a government that is well known for allowing the laundering of the proceeds of drug trafficking throughout the region through its financial system? This is morally wrong and the Australian Government should end its relationship as far as possible with this morally reprehensible regime.

Neil B, the Singapore government is in fact, democratically elected. More parties stand for election in Singapore than in Australia. But they don't often get voted in by average citizens because these citizens happen to believe the Singapore government does right by them. Like Australia, Singapore is a founding member of the Asia Pacific Group of the FATF. Like Australia, Singapore ratified the UN Vienna Convention 1988, enacted anti-money laundering laws with respect to narcotic offences and with respect to other serious offences, and has established a Financial Intelligence Unit to interdict money laundering activities. If this is allowing the laundering of drug money, then Australia is guilty of it as well, huh? By the way, wouldn't you regard governments that participate in illegal wars of aggression as illegitimate regimes? In contrast, I suggest governments that strongly protect their citizens against the misery of drugs are morally legitimate.

From: Geoff
Comment: Absolutely not. It encourages blood-thirsty revenge-based social standards which isn't this country or it's people. It's for the less gifted, third world countries only. Nigeria, Iraq, Indonesia, America...

Geoff, I'm confused. Is it more blood thirsty to hang a self-confessed drug trafficker or for Australia to prosecute an illegal war of aggression resulting in the deaths of 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians?

From: Robert G
Comment: You've got to be kidding! In this 21st century, have we learned nothing of compassion or mercy? If the death penalty were an effective deterrent, there would be no drug crimes. This young man made a mistake. A big one. Probably the only one he has ever made. And for this one mistake, he pays with his life. These lethal, unforgiving nations should come into the 21st century.

Robert G, I'm not kidding that you and your loved ones are far safer from all forms of crime in Singapore than you are in any Australian city of comparable size. The tough laws on drug trafficking in Singapore work. And if Singaporeans disagreed with it, they would have voted the government out long ago. This young man had many opportunities to abandon his crime before reaching Singapore. But he chose to continue each time. So he is being held personally accountable for his actions. Personal accountability is something some Australians seem to have forgotten in the 21st century, don't you think?

From: Andrew F-R
Comment: Ironically, Singapore uses the fact it is a civil and safe place with little crime to justify a barbaric and outdated practice.

Andrew F-R, Singapore is a civil and safe place with little crime precisely because of a "barbaric and outdated" practice. It's a pity such civility and safety with little crime has become outdated in many parts of Australia. So I wait with bated breath for Australia to accept drug trafficking asylum seekers from Singapore.

Would these views play in the White House?

2005-09-26T13:15:00.000+10:00

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."

"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

I wonder if this person would get short shrift in Dubya's office today? Would Dubya have appointed him as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or picked him as vice-president?

Check this man's bio on Wikipedia to see if he has the right qualifications.

True patriotism reawakens in America

2005-09-25T11:06:00.000+10:00

It was heartening to learn that so many decent Americans found the courage to voice their dissent over what the Bush regime has done to their beloved country. As a Washington Post article reported,

"Tens of thousands of people packed downtown Washington yesterday and marched past the White House in the largest show of antiwar sentiment in the nation's capital since the conflict in Iraq began...

...Signs, T-shirts, slogans and speeches outlined the cost of the Iraq conflict in human as well as economic terms. They memorialized dead U.S. troops and Iraqis, and contrasted the price of war with the price of recovery for areas battered by hurricanes Katrina and Rita."

Ordinary people, from as far away as Ohio, travelled to Washington DC to be part of this remarkable reawakening. For some, their heartfelt sentiment was sparked in part by the fallout from Hurricane Katrina.

"Leslie Darling, 60, came from Cleveland with four friends and said it was her first antiwar protest. She said she was moved by what happened after Hurricane Katrina.

'It made clear that while we spend all this money trying to impose our will on other countries, here at home in our own country, we can't take care of each other,' she said."

It appears past and recent war veterans have also found their voices. A recent Iraq veteran who served two tours of duty also joined the rally.

"'I've never done this before, but here I am, in uniform, figuring this is the only way I can shove it to Bush,' said Cookinham, of Newport, R.I., a Persian Gulf War veteran who recently returned from a second tour in Iraq. 'This war makes no sense.'"

The Post's article quoted many protesters saying that they had opposed the war all along and were emboldened by recent polls suggesting a majority of Americans now disapprove of Bush's handling of the war.

One hopes that the dissenters are a growing influence in the country and that these true patriots will sweep the neo-con cancer from the Republican Party and open the way for a return to traditional Republicanism in that party. For the Democrats, one hopes that they too, can resist the urge to adopt more Right wing positions in an effort to regain political ground.

In the end, it matters less whether the next president is Republican or Democrat. It matters more that the next president is a person who doesn't subscribe to the neo-con ideology of making illegal wars the option of first resort. Doing so places decent patriotic citizens in an invidious position.

"'I hear from him about once a month,' said Brenda as her husband gently waved a placard that said, 'Proud of my soldier: Ashamed of this war.'"

Who is the real threat today?

2005-09-09T20:19:00.000+10:00

When Dear Old Dubya first took office in 2000, one of his first pronouncements was that he viewed China as a strategic competitor to the US. Later, various members of Team Neo-Con made repeated references to China being a direct military threat to the nation.

In its 2005 Quadrennial Defence Review, the Financial Times reported the Pentagon increased its assessment of the threat posed by China's military. Well, the Pentagon and the Bush administration would claim this wouldn't they? If there wasn't some bogeyman to work up a good old paranoid scare, how would the Pentagon justify growth of the defence budget? By the way, the budget as a percentage of GDP is the largest it has ever been since the dark days of WW2. As usual, the Pentagon's self-serving claims went unchallenged.

Let's see if we can use some real facts to test these claims.

In a meticulously referenced book, "The Sorrows of Empire", Professor Chalmers Johnson reports that the US Department of Defence maintains 725 military bases in 38 countries around the world - as published in their Base Structure Report. The Pentagon's Manpower Report discloses that as at September 2001, the US had 254,788 military personnel in 153 countries. Obviously this number has increased dramatically since the invasion and occupation of Iraq. In contrast, China has precisely zero military bases outside its present borders and exactly zero military personnel stationed permanently or semi-permanently on foreign soil.

Now, I grant you that being a victor of WW2 would have automatically entailed the presence of US forces on foreign soil. But you know, WW2 ended sixty years ago, and the Cold War ended with the implosion of the USSR in 1990 - that's fifteen years ago. Neither Germany nor Japan for example, have been in the so-called frontline of whatever new country the Pentagon claims poses a threat to national security. So why is Okinawa still an island commandeered by the US military? Why is Ramstein still a US military air base?

Let's look at nuclear arsenals as another example.

As at 2002, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reported that the US held 10,600 physical warheads to China's 400. A ratio of 26.5 to 1. Put another way, China has a warhead for every 739,250 Americans while the US has one warhead for every 123,208 Chinese. Note that the average destructive yield of US warheads is greater than that of China's warheads. So the ratio of destructive yields is skewed even more in favour of the US! Even more self-serving is the Pentagon's claim of China "building up" its nuclear arsenal. As an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reports, this is not truthful.

Offshore power projection is quaint technical term referring to one country's ability to intimidate another country by deploying military forces to or near the second country.

For naval forces, aircraft carriers are the prime assets of intimidation. The US Navy has twelve carrier battle groups built around twelve aircraft carriers on duty around the world. The PLA Navy has exactly none. I should also add that the US maintains a fleet of eighteen fleet ballistic missile submarines; tasked to launch nuclear ballistic missiles when so ordered by the president. China has two submarines of 1970s vintage; the equivalent of which were long since retired by the US Navy.

In the air forces sweepstakes, the US has a total of 130 B-1, B-2 and B-52 transcontinental strategic bombers compared to the PLA Air Force's non-existent fleet. The PLA does have 2.3 million uniformed personnel on establishment compared to the US' 1.25 million uniformed personnel. But the Pentagon admits that more than half of the PLA personnel are simply not combat ready to an equivalent standard. Not only that, the Chinese have a major problem. They even lack the ability to transport troops across the 130 kms to Taiwan! If they can't get to Taiwan, how can they get to the world's second largest economy - Japan, let alone the continental US?

So much for China being a strategic military threat to the US! It's now time to turn the picture around to look at the US from China's perspective.

Imagine you are sitting in Beijing looking at a world map like the one below. What do you see and what conclusions would you draw?

Does the word "encirclement" come to mind? It should. Since the formation of the People's Republic of China in October 1949, it has been a key strategy of the Pentagon to build an iron ring of bases around its enemies (real or perceived) to contain them.

Despite ample evidence to the contrary, militarists in the uniformed services and in the civilian legislature call for ever higher military expenditures year after year. Small wonder. After all, 725 foreign bases, carrier battle groups, strategic bomber fleets, ballistic missile submarine fleets etc don't come cheaply. Nor do wars around the world.

So who really poses the greatest threat to world stability today?

Is Hurricane Katrina a turning point?

2005-09-07T14:13:00.000+10:00

A number of political commentators suggest that the fallout from Hurricane Katrina is a lesson on the limits of America's unchallenged military power.

In some ways, they are absolutely correct. But I think the lessons are actually lost on those who need to understand it the most - the ruling class in the US and the voters who provide superficial legitimacy to the "democratic" process of installing an emperor.

Many learned historians and analysts like Professor Chalmers Johnson (The Sorrows of Empire) believe the militaristic imperial state such as that of the Roman Empire, has taken hold in the US and grown past the point of no return. I had heard this theory before but disagreed with the proposition that it had gone past the point of no return. But lately, I'm leaning more towards this view because of a couple of events.

Subversion of the Florida ballot in 2000; that was explicitly endorsed by the Supreme Court under Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Appointment of Rehnquist's successor by the beneficiary (Dubya) of the subverted ballot. The implications are dire for future constitutional challenges (such as another disputed electoral college ballot) heard by the Supreme Court under John Roberts.

Renewal of the USA Patriot Act by a Congress controlled by the same party as the person who stole the presidency. Few Americans realise that this act has become a de facto circumscribing amendment to their treasured bill of rights! Every renewal renders subsequent repeal less likely even when emergency times pass.

The government today is larger than at any other time except during the days of WW2. But in WW2, the country was fighting a world war. Today's supersized government is devoted to growing one branch - the military. Just about every other branch is smaller than before. Yet in a democracy, isn't the reverse is supposed to be true?

In their own self-serving way, supporters of increasing an already gargantuan military service have been pointing to the growing threat of China and even possibly India, as reasons for continued growth. But I suggest that India and China may never end up following the Roman Empire model for a simple reason.

It's unlikely either country will acquire the same ruthless ability to organise extreme violence in such a scientific and efficient manner as that of the US. It took the US about sixty-five years of gargantuan military spending to gain their current size, and as long to hone their war-fighting skills by prosecuting numerous wars around the world.

In addition, I doubt China's and India's populations have the social and cultural values required to glorify the military and war to the same high status as the American public has done. The reason the US military is what it is today, is due to the American public directly or indirectly supporting it.

How else could various presidents have engaged the country as a principal protagonist in the Korean War, Vietnam War, Cold War, 1st and 2nd Gulf Wars, and a few little direct or proxy wars in Central and South America (eg Panama, Grenada, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala)? If the majority of voters had been against any of these wars, then they would have spoken thus through the ballot box.

I know many people support their troops in good faith, even though they may disagree with the presidential decisions placing them in harm's way in the first place. But the question is what would they have done if Hitler was in the White House and had ordered the troops to invade Poland?

Preposterous scenario! I imagine many people would claim. But is it really?

In September 1939, Hitler ordered Heinrich Himmler to stage a series of anti-German incidents (Operation Himmler) to give Germany an excuse to invade Poland. Hitler claimed the invasion was to protect Germany's security and that of Germans living in Poland.

Fast forward to Iraq 2003. We now know that Bush fabricated evidence of Saddam Hussein having NBC weapons that directly threatened the national security of the US. Even Bush's own chief weapons inspector said the evidence was false. But yet Bush was re-elected and a majority of the American public still support the war.

So it begs the question, if Chalmers Johnson is wrong about the US passing the point of no return in being a militaristic state ala the Roman Empire, then the supporting evidence in the form of the reversal of at least two of the four key events highlighted earlier, has yet to occur.

The meaning of Empathy

2005-09-05T15:44:00.000+10:00

As you read reports of the terrible death, chaos and lawlessness in the Deep South of America, spare a thought for the poor Iraqis who lost loved ones during and following the fall of Saddam Hussein's government. Imagine the scenes of death, chaos and lawlessness but perhaps an order of magnitude greater.

That's what it probably was like for the Iraqi civilians when strange white men armed with fearsome weapons arrived, shooting at anything that looked remotely threatening to them. Men so callous that they even shot parents in front of their young children.

Credit: Getty Images/BBC

Look at the sheer anguish in the face of the little girl crying for her dead parents; while her little brother's face is frozen in sheer terror. Their crime was to be in a car at the wrong time and place; and not complying with an order to stop. But how could they, if they didn't understand English (see an earlier post "Iraq haunts middle America" describing another similar tragedy)? Now, please tell me whether this is the sort of democracy and freedom anyone wants.

Do we not think these little children will be psychologically scarred for life? Why should we be surprised if some of these children eventually grow up and return the favour to those who brought such carnage and tragedy to their young lives?

In New Orleans and in other flood affected regions of the South, the survivors were angry and resentful at being forsaken by Team Neo-Con in their time of greatest need. The disaster came in two parts - natural and man-made. Whereas, in Iraq, the disaster also came in two parts. But both the illegal invasion and the subsequent chaos were man-made by a government of a country that purports to stand for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What a surprise the "insurgency" lives on in Iraq.

If those who support Bush don't see the irony and deeply shameful contradictions then I'm afraid they don't understand the meaning of Empathy; much less deserve any from the rest of the world over any calamity that befalls them.

Dissonance from within

2005-09-03T00:09:00.000+10:00

The chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans is astounding as it is shameful for the Bush regime. With accounts of looting, rape, shootings, general lawlessness and a seeming absence of meaningful relief efforts, Americans are discovering perhaps their emperor has clay feet after all.

Even more interesting are the reactions of some Americans to the relatively muted response from the world. The common theme of these posts is that the world hasn't reflected the same apparent compassion, concern, support and assistance the US has shown to the rest of the world. The writers are genuinely shocked, hurt and bewildered.

Here are some posts from the BBC News website.

"The world seems silent in our time of great need. You ask for our compassion, but show us none.
Kendall, San Jose, California"

For Kendall from San Jose, perhaps he or she should ask if there has been any compassion or interest shown by the US public for the estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed during the US invasion. Remember that this war was prosecuted on a pack of lies - something that was totally man-made rather than a natural disaster. Now if Kendall thinks there was compassion and interest expressed, it was a really well-kept secret. Surviving relatives of the Iraqi casualties could be forgiven for wondering how is it Dubya was re-elected with a larger majority than the first time around.

"I find it so disheartening that the global community has been silent on the tragedy occurring in the USA. It speaks volumes as to what these countries really feel about us. The USA is the first hand held out to other countries in their time of need, it seems that we could have at least an expression of sympathy from them.
B Stern, NY, USA"

For B Stern from NY, perhaps he or she has been watching too many US news broadcasts in the last few years. If the majority of Americans still believe Bush went to war because Iraq was the centre of world terrorism, then I guess it makes sense for B Stern believe "the USA is the first hand held out to other countries in their time of need..." In the last handful of major disasters, the fact is that countries other than the US were the first to offer assistance - especially during the Bush presidency. And by the way, Dubya has proven his standard operating procedure (tardiness) again. But this time it's in America's backyard.

"Where's the UN? When the Tsunami hit, America was sharply criticized by Kofi Anan for not donating enough. And at $350,000,000, we were the fourth largest donator. Someone said earlier in this post that the silence of the international community is deafening. Well, I say the silence of the UN speaks volumes.
Jackie, Kansas, USA"

Jackie from Kansas really doesn't know much about what her own president has been doing in the UN, does she? Either that, or she wants to have things every which way. Since taking office, Dubya has made it part of his messianic mission to trash multilateral institutions, and in particular, sideline the UN because in his view, it is useless and ineffective. That's why he sent John Bolton to bully member nations into toeing the neo-con line for UN reform! So why ask for help from a currently useless and ineffective organisation, Jackie?

Let the facts speak for themselves.

At $350m, she says the US was the fourth largest donor to the tsunami relief fund. America spends $5.6 billion a week on the war in Iraq. That's $800m a day! From the CIA's very own World Fact Book, based on a GDP of $11.75 trillion and a population of 295.7m, the $350m donation works out to 0.003% of annual GDP, $1.18 per citizen or most interestingly, just 10.5 hours worth of war expenditure in Iraq.

Let me re-emphasise the last point. The $350m donation is just 44% of what the US spends on waging war in Iraq in ONE day.

In contrast, Germany donated $647m and based on a GDP of $2.36 trillion and a population of 82.4m, their donation works out to 0.03% of annual GDP or $7.85 per citizen. So please excuse the international community for being a tad underwhelmed by such self-serving claims.

Let's look at some comments from the international community on the BBC News website.

"This finally shows the US up for the morally corrupt country it is. If you don't have the money, you really are at the bottom of a scrapheap and shouldn't deserve any help or handouts. George W Bush shows how utterly inept he is.
Martin Noon, London UK"

I doubt Dubya is inept in the eyes of the beneficiaries of his tax cuts for the rich!

"It's a big shame. It's all because those people are black, not so rich and don't matter to the US. They are not part of the society. If this had happened in NY or Washington, Penn. the response would have definitely been different. It's incomprehensible for a superpower to waste resources in wars and boast of robust action around the world when it cannot remove the little spec in its home. I am very disappointed and angry. The US has the largest army, trucks, space shuttles and yet they can't help.
Gordon, Nottingham"

It's a fact that poor black Americans tend to vote for the Democrats so the neo-cons won't be losing sleep over lost votes they never had in the first place.

"While there would always have been casualties after such a major hurricane, it does seem that the "small government" policies of the American administration have left them less able to prepare for and respond to major events. Poor people are left to "sink or swim"- literally in this case.
George, Edinburgh, Scotland"

Actually, the US government is the largest it has ever been since WW2. Larger than during the Clinton years, and larger than during the Korean and Vietnam wars. As a percentage of GDP, government expenditure today is exceeded only by that during WW2!

So where is all the money going? To new hospitals, housing assistance, education or public infrastructure? The answer is none of the above. The money is going to the sharp end of the Empire's edifice - the military and to companies like Halliburton; of which Dick Cheney was its former CEO.

Did I also mention that this company has been fined for overcharging the US taxpayers and is under further investigations for other financial irregularities?

But I digress again.

The deafening silence from the international community is because they have either been already cowed into silence by Dubya's "you're for us or against us" diplomacy or are perhaps busy experiencing a degree of Schadenfreud right now.

Renewed offensive on truth

2005-08-25T10:17:00.000+10:00

While the neo-con war machine grinds on in Iraq, its chief puppet, Dubya, has renewed his offensive on truth on the home front.

Perhaps worried by the attention the mother of a dead soldier is drawing with her protest in Texas, the presidential liar rejected calls by anti-war protesters to withdraw from Iraq, and vowed that the US would "stay, fight and win the war on terror." While Dubya's position is unsurprising, it seems disappointing that the negative public sentiment over the war misses some very important issues.

Adverse public sentiment revolves around three concerns - the mounting casualties, the war going badly and that the war hasn't made the US safer. As an aside, I should point out the typically self-centred perspective of these concerns. The American public shows little concern for the terrible mess created in Iraq; including deaths of many more Iraqi civilians compared to US troops! If ever there was a wonderful example of why non-Americans fairly or unfairly think Americans are narcissistic, this would be one.

But I digress yet again.

Deep thinking and knowledgeable Americans must remind their compatriots that Dubya illegally invaded Iraq because he claimed Saddam Hussein had NBC weapons that directly threatened the security of the US. Let me repeat, Dubya claimed Saddam Hussein had NBC weapons that directly threatened the security of the US.

Sadly, the public has already forgotten a Congressional committee investigated and concluded no such weapons existed. Even the man appointed by Bush himself to "find proof" Saddam had such weapons, concluded exactly the opposite! Yet the irony of appointing David Kay to "find proof" of NBC weapons after the invasion of Iraq despite Dubya going to war claiming he had "irrefutable" proof, is lost on the nation!

When the presidential liar had to appoint David Kay to find proof, the American public should have called for Bush's impeachment. For not only did he commit the country to an illegal war, he ordered American citizens in uniform to go to Iraq and die for a pack of lies. Bush lied to congress, to the people, subverted their system of government and committed a war crime by invading a sovereign nation.

Today, note how the NBC weapons fantasy is no longer the reason for invading and occupying Iraq. Now the reason is to eliminate terrorists threatening the security of the US. But this too is a lie because even the president's own National Intelligence Council admitted that prior to the invasion, Iraq wasn't a terrorist haven but that the invasion had in fact turned the country into one!

These are some of the issues that should have really concerned the public. But instead, at least 50% re-elected Bush! So exactly where does it leave the American public? Carrying the can for their choice of president, I'm afraid.

I know the consequences of that choice also fall heavily and unfairly on the 48% who voted against Bush. Not only that, those Americans who continued to question the morality of the invasion were also vilified as "unpatriotic" citizens. They are to be admired for their commitment to high principles and are encouraged to stay the course to elect a far better president than the one under whom they are suffering now.

For those among the 50% who re-elected Bush and are sorry for their sin, they can repent at the next election by not voting for a war-mongering neo-con false prophet. In the mean time, they can do penance by reminding their fellow citizens of the original reasons for going to war.

For the remaining die hard Bush supporters, there is no redemption. Unacknowledged and continuing sins deserve all the punishment Dubya can dish out. For them, Dubya is their god, just as Dubya is Dubya's own god too. Their god is right. The US must stay in Iraq to experience more pain and loss, and hopefully, keep everyone else outside of that wretched country out of harm's way.

Who's really to blame for high oil prices?

2005-07-17T15:49:00.000+10:00

With a rapidly developing economy and emerging trend similar to that of America's great love affair for cars, China's appetite for oil has been growing briskly. Compared to the rest of the world, the country's consumption of oil grew by 14% in 2004 over 2003. Similar growth rates have been reported for 2005.

Consequently, many commentators say that this is the prime reason for the spike in oil prices. While that may be true, it is also true that were it not for US oil consumption crowding out everyone else in the first place, and if Iraqi oil was available (whatever you think of Saddam Hussein), it's likely oil prices wouldn't be as high they are today.

For people in already industrialised countries to complain China's growing demand for oil is adversely affecting their lifestyle, is quite frankly, hypocritical. They forget that China supplies the very goods that industrialised countries consume - goods such as plasma TVs, DVD players, laptop computers, clothes etc. Producing these goods for us does require energy - derived from oil, gas, coal and water (hydro-electricity).

Now if I remember correctly, our self-proclaimed world leader, Dubya, refuses to sign the Kyoto Protocol because it doesn't impose emission targets that are as stringent as those for the US, on developing countries like China and India. Yet the US is the biggest buyer of modern life's toys and conveniences produced by China at the lowest possible prices, as demanded by the American consumer.

Dubya is really trying to have it every which way he can, isn't he? We are trying it on like Bush as well, when we complain about China being the cause of our woes with high oil prices. What right do we have to blame China for high oil prices when we are one of the reasons for their developing economy?

Now, I know some people will point out that all of China's oil demand growth isn't just due to economic production. There is also the issue of their growing love affair with cars. We too, can complain about their growing love affair being the reason for us paying ever higher prices for oil here. But we can only do so after we cut our use of cars to the same level as what we want them to do. What's good for the goose must be good for the gander too. Anything less is sheer hypocrisy.

Speaking about hypocrisy, let's examine this phenomenon a little more deeply.

Earlier, I alluded to US oil consumption crowding out everyone else, including newcomers. Using data again sourced from British Petroleum's excellent publication, Statistical Review of World Energy 2005, some interesting findings emerge.

The top three regions in terms of oil consumption today, are Europe & Eurasia, North America and Asia Pacific. Back in 1965, only Europe & Eurasia and North America dominated. This is unsurprising, as back in 1965, both these regions were so far ahead in terms of industrialisation. Asia Pacific's oil consumption really took off about the mid-1980s onwards to overtake that of Europe & Eurasia about 2000, and approach that of North America in 2004.

Source: BP p.l.c.

Looking at individual countries within Asia Pacific, you can see that Japan drove regional consumption until the mid-1970s; afterwhich that country's demand flattened. It is only from the mid-1980s that China combined with Other Asia Pacific (ie principally South-East Asia and Australia) and until about 1998, South Korea, that drove regional demand to higher levels. From about 2000 onwards, China's consumption became the region's largest, surpassing that of Japan and Other Asia Pacific.

Source: BP p.l.c.

All the consumption figures so far, are really nothing when they are compared against the world's largest consumer of oil, the USA. Long before 1965, it has consistently consumed much more oil than any other country. By the way, this also means that the US has consistently produced more greenhouse gases than any other country (also taking into account other fossil fuels like coal and gas).

Source: BP p.l.c.

A major reason for Bush's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol is that reduction targets imposed upon the US would be more stringent than those imposed China and India. Instead, since China's oil consumption growth rate is far higher than anyone else's, the US argues it is countries like China that must have stringent targets! Anything else, they claim, is giving China a free ride. Such logic is summed up by a post on this issue on the BBC website:

"Even if Global Warming does turn out to be something more substantial, than this generation's politically correct, junk-science-based, cause celeb', why should President Bush sign on to something like Kyoto, that gives China a free pass, and puts the American economy at a competitive disadvantage. Europeans may accept policies that result in 10-12% unemployment rates and a persistent weak economic growth, but the American people will not stand for such policies and President Bush is wise enough to recognize that fact.
Allen Helton, Fredericksburg, VA, USA"

Let's use a little simple arithmetic to prove how vacuous and dishonest this logic is.

In 2004, according to BP statistics, the US consumed 937.6 million tonnes of oil while China consumed 366.9 million tonnes. In the prior year, the US consumed 912.3 million tonnes versus China's 321.7 million tonnes. So observers love to claim that US consumption grew by a "responsible" 2.8% while China's consumption grew by a "profligate" 14%.

What's the problem? The problem is that a percentage calculation is simply a relative measure not an absolute measure. A particular increase that is relatively large compared to a low base, is smaller when compared to a much higher base.

Specifically, even though China's consumption grew by 14%, in absolute terms, this translated into 45.2 million tonnes versus the US' growth of 25.3 million tonnes. A difference of 1.8 times (ie 45.3 compared to 25.3) compared to the difference of 5 times (ie 14% compared to 2.8%) implied by using percentage growth rates.

With a population of 1.306 billion needing to use energy to go about their daily lives, why wouldn't China's oil consumption be larger in absolute terms, than that of the US with a population of 295.7 million? In fact, we're fortunate that China's total consumption isn't proportionately larger. They simply don't use oil in any where near the same manner as America.

Another important point is that consumption of oil is measured in barrels or tonnes consumed per unit time (eg barrels per day or tonnes per day) not percentage per unit time. Clearly, the more you consume per unit time and the longer you consume it, the more total oil you consume.

If you follow the logic above about consumption per unit time and the length of time consumption occurs, then obviously, the country that consumes more per unit time over a longer period must be responsible for depleting more of the oil reserves. And we find that this is indeed the case for the US.

Since at least 1965 (where BP's data begins), the US has been singularly responsible for consuming the greatest proportion of oil in the world. And if you accept that oil reserves are finite and greenhouse gases are produced by burning oil (among other fossil fuels), then the US bears the greatest burden for reducing emissions, conserving oil and should pay higher prices for derivative products like petrol. After all, this is the purest form of the capitalist user pays principle.

China has a very long way to go before consuming as much as the US has over time. In fact, even at its current accelerating consumption growth rate, it will take China another 40 years to consume the same cumulative amount of oil the US has consumed SINCE 1965 to 2004 inclusive. If you included US consumption prior to 1965, the closure period will most certainly be much greater than 40 years!

Source: BP p.l.c.

So the true reality is that the US does indeed bear a particular responsibility for reducing emissions since it profited the most and the earliest (in terms of economic development) from consuming a finite resource in the first place.

Instead, just before the recent G8 meeting in Scotland, Bush told the rest of the world, no emission reduction targets for him, thank you very much. This is because we're an exceptional nation and we'll continue to get the free ride that is our birth right. So you can all get stuffed!

But I digress.

If we really want lower oil prices in the future, then I suggest we, in the industrialised countries and especially the US, get off the horse called Rank Hypocrisy, and stop driving petrol guzzling 4-wheel drive vehicles to our supermarkets and weekend football games, close down car companies that insist on producing oversized and uneconomical cars, ban jet-skis, off-road moto-cross bikes, car racing, and oh, especially for America, introduce a fuel tax to force world parity pricing upon a populace addicted to the cheapest petrol in the industrialised world.

All these things need to happen before we have the moral right and standing to go to the Chinese masses and tell them they cannot trade in their bicycles for shiny new cars.

Like we did some 70 years ago.

The law of reciprocity

2005-07-04T16:53:00.000+10:00

After reading this report on the BBC website, one has to fear for the well-being of the remaining three US Special Forces team MIA in Afghanistan.

It doesn't take much imagination to conclude that whatever treatment was and is being meted out to innocent or guilty detainees in US military custody in Bagram airbase and elsewhere in Afghanistan and Iraq, for that matter, the same treatment or worse will be reciprocated towards any US military personnel captured by their enemies.

In choosing to flout common standards of decency exercised upon people in its custody, the Bush administration and US military have undercut their own moral standing in the eyes of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. Civilians who would otherwise have been willing to cooperate with US forces, have been turned into passive or possibly active agents against imperial American will.

As an earlier post "Iraqi Misadventure = Global Nightmare" warned back in January, the power of the gun cannot prevail in a battle for the hearts and minds of the moderate Muslim community not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but across the globe. Scandalous images and stories of prisoner abuse and murder continue to ricochet around the world, each revelation adding to the rising tide of disgust, anger and resentment felt in the moderate Muslim world.

Almost uniquely amongst western nations in the 20th and 21st centuries, the US places tremendous faith in the power of its military to exert overt and covert control over friendly and unfriendly nations alike. But perhaps equally unique for our times, has been the emergence of trans-national threats like al-Qaeda and other allied Islamic extremist organisations. Enjoying covert and tacit support from sections of the global Muslim milieu, they rely on essentially hit and run tactics to harass the US and its allies.

Super carriers, stealth aircraft, nuclear missiles etc offer very little advantage in winning this war. Because for every Islamic extremist they kill, there are another ten to step forward seeking martyrdom. It's like trying to knock out a bee colony with a baseball bat. The harder and more you hit it, the more enraged the bees become and even more of them seem to appear from nowhere. Unfortunately, the opportunity for a more intelligent approach to defeating such extreme Islamic terrorists fades further into black with each prisoner abuse and murder scandal.

I doubt very much that there's anything America can do now, to reverse or recover from the catastrophic fall in whatever esteem and respect it once commanded around the world, regardless of whether you're referring to Muslim or non-Muslim countries. So Americans should brace for continued acts of revenge against them whether at home or abroad.

And they can fall on bended knee to thank Dubya for it.

It's the oil, stupid!

2005-06-25T12:49:00.000+10:00

For years now, British Petroleum (BP) has published a fascinating annual report entitled Statistical Review of World Energy. Publicly available on their website, this report provides excellent insight into the sources and uses of fossil fuel energy around the world. Now what does this report have to do with the political issues canvassed on this blog? As it turns out, quite a bit.

When dinner party talk around the world turns to the behaviour of the neo-con controlled Bush regime, people tend to fall into two broad groups, pro-Dubya or anti-Dubya. The pro-Dubya group believes Bush's desire to spread neo-con democracy and freedom is unadulterated altruism of messianic proportions. On the other hand, the anti-Dubya group believes that Bush uses the cloak of democracy and freedom to further an agenda driven by oil.

Certainly, in so far as the illegal invasion of Iraq is concerned, the sound trashing of the original claims of Saddam's NBC weapons laid open the bare-faced pack of lies Dubya and his mates, Blair and Howard, peddled around the world over this war. But now that Team Neo-Con has well and truly trashed Iraq, who do we think is next on their agenda?

We all have our suspicions that Iran is more likely to be next to get it in the neck than North Korea. But we may not have evidence beyond our gut feelings. Or do we? Judge for yourself, after reviewing the following analysis based on BP's goldmine of information.

Let's travel back in time to the year 2000 when Dubya moved into the White House after stealing the presidency through a finagled Florida ballot. His neo-con priests would have impressed upon him, the need for America to control directly or by proxy, global oil supplies.

For a modern industrial society like America cannot allow others to dictate terms of America's very existence by possessing the ability to turn off the oil tap. Don't believe this? Remember the oil crisis in the 1970s? That was sparked by an Arab oil embargo against the US for supporting Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war.

By the way, there is nothing wrong with a nation wishing to obtain energy security. But when does legitimate protection of energy supply become an excuse for controlling global energy supply through illegal acts of war? Not an issue, I hear some say - it's part and parcel of global politics. Remember one of the key reasons for Japan going to war in the Pacific? It was because they were denied access to oil and other raw materials by the Western powers of the day, including the US.

Japan believed they had legitimate reasons to launch their four year campaign of rampage, pillage and terror throughout the Western Pacific. If it was wrong then for Japan to go to war over blockades, then surely it must be even less justifiable for the US to launch a war based on a pack of lies.

But I digress.

The pie graph below shows the regions around the world from which the US imported oil in 2000. Notice that nearly 50% came from the Middle Eastern and Central & South American regions combined. North America (ie domestic US, Canada and Mexico) accounted for just under a further 30% of oil imports.

Source: BP p.l.c.

Now the following pie graph below shows proved global oil reserves by region in 2000. Notice that the US drew only 27% of its oil from the Middle East despite the region having a whopping 63% of proved global reserves. Contrast this with the fact that the US drew 20% of its oil from Central & South America despite that region having only 9% of proved global oil reserves. So you can see that back in 2000, the Middle Eastern region didn't have overwhelming leverage over the US in terms of oil supply. But the rest of the world was in fact far more dependent on Middle Eastern oil than the US.

Source: BP p.l.c.

Just how dependent other countries are on Middle Eastern oil (in contrast to the US) is easy to see in the following table of exports against imports by region. In this case, the data are from 2003, as 2000 figures are no longer available. The standout dependencies on Middle Eastern oil are China (40%), Japan (79%) and Other Asia Pacific (72%).

Remember what Dubya said of China when he first gained office? For those who've forgotten, he identified China as a strategic competitor to the US. Only China has shown itself to be prepared to shove back when shoved by America. With China on a path to becoming a superpower capable of challenging US control of the Pacific inside this century, it's now obvious why the neo-cons are so eager to resort even to illegal wars to ensure America controls directly or by proxy, Middle Eastern oil supplies.

If the neo-cons succeed, they believe that they can control China by threatening to turn off the Middle Eastern oil tap. Don't believe this proposition? Then stay tuned for more evidence.

As for Japan, it looks like they aren't going to pursue a less obseqious foreign policy towards the US any time soon, huh? And if any of the other Asian and Indian sub-continent natives get too uppity, well they'll just have to be reminded who controls their energy lifeblood.

Turning to Europe, notice that it imports about the same proportion of its oil as the US, from the Middle East. A far greater proportion of oil sourced is from within Europe (Norway) and Eurasia (Russia and former Soviet Republics such as Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan). So it's more difficult for Europe to be influenced via the oil lever.

Source: BP p.l.c.

The next table shows proved oil reserves by country in the Middle East region in 2000. Countries politically unsympathetic to the US are highlighted in red text while those that are politically sympathetic or under proxy control are highlighted in blue text. Notice that Iraq and Iran have the second and third largest proved oil reserves after Saudi Arabia. We all know what happened to Iraq in 2003. Guess who controls their oil resources now?

Since seizing control of Iraq, isn't it interesting how Team Neo-Con has now been emitting bellicose noises at Iran? Officially, the Bush regime claims that Iran's nuclear program is capable of military applications. But why is this more of an immediate threat than North Korea's admitted possession of nuclear weapons and very public test firings of missiles designed to deliver nuclear warheads?

If it was good enough for Dubya to fabricate evidence of NBC weapons to invade Iraq, why isn't it good enough for him to invade North Korea, given their admissions? Instead, we find the neo-cons' focus is on Iran with its probable nascent nuclear program. Interesting lack of consistency, isn't it?

That's why we shouldn't be surprised if some sort of confrontation with Iran occurs before the end of Dubya's presidency. And if, perish the thought, another Republican sits in the White House, expect more of the same.

By the way, even though Syria is one of the founding members of Dubya's Axis of Evil, they can still sleep easy. They are very, very unlikely to be invaded by the neo-cons any time soon. Just like that bleak death camp, North Korea, I suspect Syria has little of something called oil to warrant an invasion. I mean, Team Neo-Con doesn't just go to war over a small drop of oil, you know!

Source: BP p.l.c.

As the table below shows, Venezuela has the absolute lion's share of proved oil reserves in the Central & South American region. What's the significance of this fact? Well, as the very first pie graph in this post shows, the US imports a fifth of its oil from Venezuela. This means that the US would have particularly strong reasons to ensure a politically pliable Venezuelan leadership holds office down south.

But in 1999, Venezuelans voted to replace a corrupt pro-US leader with a leftist ex-paratrooper. Sickened by corrupt politicians and the elite lining their own pockets, voters decided to back Hugo Chavez because he promised tough political and social reforms. After taking office, Chavez began to pursue a foreign policy far less aligned towards the US.

Unsurprisingly, the Bush White House then began to run a line that Chavez wasn't acting in the best interests of Venezuela. Along the way, an unsuccessful Right wing led coup against Chavez fortuitously arose out of nowhere but sparked little adverse comment from the neo-cons. Strange, huh?

Source: BP p.l.c.

Now to Africa. As the very first pie graph of this post shows, the African region accounted for 15% of America's oil imports in 2000. And as the table below shows, Nigeria and Libya together have 70% of the region's proved oil reserves. And what a surprise to find American involvement or interest in both countries' affairs to the exclusion of attention on other more wretched humanitarian disasters in Africa. No significant oil in those other places - that's their problem.

Source: BP p.l.c.

The last region of note is collectively known as Europe and Eurasia. Here, Russia has the lion's share of proved oil reserves. Now as the red text highlights, the Russian government isn't politically pliable nor sympathetic to the neo-con agenda. So instead, why not cosy up to the Russian oil companies that control the drilling rights?

Unfortunately for the neo-cons, Putin wised up to their support of the former Yukos chief, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and found a way to remove him. Now before we get all teary-eyed over the anti-democratic actions against Khodorkovsky, as Team Neo-Con wants us to be, we need to understand how this man became an oil tycoon in the first place.

When the former USSR disintegrated into its various republics today, state assets such as oil exploration and production rights, were bought for ridiculously low prices by individuals like Khodorkovsky with no proper legal and financial frameworks to ensure Russian citizens (in this case) received commercial prices for their former state-owned assets.

Often, the individuals buying the assets were the same officials charged with selling the assets, or were close relatives of those officials. After all, how else could a 30+ year old man in a country where individual private wealth didn't exist, suddenly become a multi-billionaire overnight? Through his family fortune and business talents previously non-existent in a command economy? Give us a break! We should save our tears for someone more deserving.

Source: BP p.l.c.

Notice that even though the US sourced only 7% of oil imports from this region, Eurasia (comprised of a number of former Soviet republics) has about 35% of proved global gas reserves (in addition to significant proved oil reserves). So why is it that despite not importing significant quantities of gas or oil from Eurasia or Central Asia, the US still has military bases in Kyrgyzstan (landlocked country which borders China), Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan; and has struck direct unspecified military cooperation agreements with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan?

What is the underlying strategic intent behind this unprecedented move into a region of zero historical connection and interest to the US?

Is it really in support of the so-called "War on Terror" in Afghanistan, as claimed by the Bush regime? Isn't it a little odd that so much money is being spent on bases all around this region, to find one guy - Osama Bin Laden? And despite the enormous resources expended, they still can't find this guy. Maybe they don't want to find him. After all, if Bin Laden is found, what publicly acceptable reason is there for the US bases to remain in Central Asia?

On the other hand, if these bases remain, direct or proxy control of these resource rich countries places a powerful choke hold on energy supplies to the neo-cons' next big future enemy - China. Now there's a really plausible reason for spending billions of taxpayers' dollars...

Don't see the point? Take out a map of the Asian continent. Make sure you can see from China and Japan in the east, to Iraq and Turkey in the west. Imagine you are President Hu Jin Tao sitting in Beijing. You know your fast growing economy needs reliable energy supplies to fuel its growth.

At present 40% of your oil is from the Middle East, a region under the American thumb. Another 30% of your supply is from the Asia Pacific region, another American lake. While only 10% is from Eurasia (Central Asia), this region has vast resources which could supply a far greater proportion of your energy needs than it does now. And since this region is adjacent to your western borders, perhaps you can achieve better security over these supplies. After all, Middle Eastern oil must pass through waters controlled by the US Navy, as does oil from the Asia Pacific. You know it but unfortunately, so do the Americans.

So their Central Asian bases not only pose a threat to your desire for greater energy security, they also pose a threat of military encirclement. You see, US bases on your western borders (Central Asian republics), US bases on your southern borders (Pakistan, Thailand and Singapore) and US bases on your eastern borders (Taiwan, South Korea and Japan) aren't there to spread neo-con democracy and freedom. They are there to contain you. But ironically, if the shoe was on the other foot - ie Chinese bases in Mexico, Cuba and Canada, to name a few countries, imagine the McCarthy type campaign that would be running rampant in Fort Dubya now!

In summary, Team Neo-Con has a deep agenda in relation to oil. This agenda extends beyond legitimate protection of US energy supply, over to direct or proxy control of global energy supply in the form of a publicly unrecognised Cold War. Under the guise of promoting freedom and democracy, the neo-cons believe they can forestall the inevitable decline of Pax Americana through fair means or foul.

They have already demonstrated their preparedness to prosecute illegal and immoral wars to achieve their ends, and have duped most of their own citizens in the same way Big Brother did in George Orwell's classic novel, 1984. Even though the neo-cons have succeeded in subverting the high principles upon which their own nation was founded, they haven't yet accomplished the same mission outside America.

Let's hope they fail miserably.

A viral infection called Doubt

2005-06-13T11:54:00.000+10:00

As the disaster founded on lies - ie Iraq, continues to grind on, a strange viral infection has begun to affect those on Capitol Hill who in good faith or bad, supported the Bush regime's illegal invasion of Iraq. A BBC article reports the views of one a such pro-war congressman, Walter Jones.

After having written over 1,300 condolence letters to families of soldiers killed in action, and attended the funeral of a soldier at which his widow read out his last letter, that most insidious of viruses called Doubt has finally infected the mind of Walter Jones.

By his own admission, Jones now questions the whole sordid exercise of the invasion and presumably, attendant atrocities such as Abu Ghraib. To quote his words,

"I voted for the resolution to commit the troops, and I feel that we've done about as much as we can do. I just feel that the reason of going in for weapons of mass destruction, the ability of the Iraqis to make a nuclear weapon, that's all been proven that it was never there."

The question for Jones and those like him, is why were they so eager to believe their lying President when a simple application of their own common sense and presumed basic critical thinking would have caused HUGE red flags to pop up everywhere?

I mean, it wasn't as though the rest of the world believed the lies peddled by the White House, Downing Street and Kirribilli House (in Australia), was it? If the average citizen in Main Street in London, Paris or Sydney didn't buy the lies back before the war, what possessed Jones and his fellow pro-war travellers to suspend disbelief to vote for war?

Isn't also disgraceful that only when sufficient numbers of American soldiers are killed, do people like Jones catch the Doubt virus. Do we really think that he would have caught this virus if no American casualties had been sustained so far? In other words, at no time does his frame of reference include the deaths of Iraqi civilians. They are just towel heads who aren't worthy of consideration in the neo-con calculus of war because they aren't Americans.

It is absolutely essential for Dubya and Team Neo-Con to remain in Iraq and suffer more casualties. Not because of nurturing a neo-con democracy, but because the pro-war voters amongst citizens and congress alike must experience far more pain and adverse consequences to be taught a lesson that will hopefully be remembered at least until the next presidential election.

The pity of it all is that honourable servicemen and servicewomen will have to give their lives for a lie foisted upon them and their nation by a bunch of dishonourable war criminals.

You know the old saying about getting the politicians for whom you vote...

Patriot or traitor?

2005-06-02T15:31:00.000+10:00

It was fascinating to observe the reactions of various parties when the Watergate whistleblower finally identified himself after all these years. Nixon's former speechwriter and erstwhile Republican presidential candidate of yesteryear, Pat Buchanan, called Mark Felt a traitor for blowing the whistle on the scandal. I'd venture to suggest many in the Republican party; especially those of the neo-con variety, share similar if not more virulent views of Felt.

That these people see Felt as a traitor rather than a true patriot is telling. You see, if you believe that a president is above the law of the land and all who serve him must do so devoid of their own conscience, morality, honour and duty to the nation, then Felt is a traitor. This belief seems to afflict Right wing Republicans more than anyone else. Now why is this the case?

I think that at the core of these people, they truly believe that they are destined to rule absolutely and are therefore answerable to nobody. So when someone like Felt demonstrates that he understands what the Constitution, president's office and government are really supposed to be, by blowing the whistle on high crimes, these Right wingers regard this as a subversion of their destiny.

This is the fundamental reason for neo-cons labelling those Americans who dare question Dubya's and his gang's actions, as anti-American and traitorous. And being so identified, anything goes in silencing those citizens who are in fact, the true patriots of America.

If one reads the US Constitution carefully, and understands the rationale underpinning the three-cornered structure of government; the executive (President), the legislature (Congress) and judiciary (Supreme Court), then you cannot but conclude that Felt is a patriot rather than a traitor.

Whereas those who subverted and circumvented the Constitution by stealing a presidency, lying to Congress and to the nation in order to prosecute an illegal war, and commit extra-judicial murder of prisoners, now occupy the highest offices in the land. They claim the cloak of patriotism for their shameful and disgraceful acts that violate the Constitution and the people's trust.

Now this is high treason.

Crocodile tears amid high crimes

2005-05-22T11:35:00.000+10:00

Following a Newsweek report later retracted, that the Koran was desecrated in the course of interrogations, the White House shrieked that the good name of the US had been irreparably harmed around the world. Self-righteously, the Bush White House cried crocodile tears of anger at how its good works around the world in bringing neo-con freedom and democracy to blighted lands had been damaged beyond repair.

Oh pleeaase!

Dubya would have us believe that before this report; which by the way, led to anti-US riots leaving at least 16 people dead, nobody thought his administration had done anything to incur the hatred and wrath of Muslims and non-Muslims alike around the world?

I guess in his Dubya in Wonderland world view, an illegal invasion of a non-threatening country based on a pack of lies is like homecoming instead. The 100,000 odd civilian deaths (estimated by British medical journal The Lancet) resulting from the war were just cruel lies of the vilest nature. The prisoner abuse and murders in Iraq and Afghanistan were just innocent Home Coming tailgate parties for the US military forces.

As the saying goes, the truth is stranger than fiction.

Instead, we find that following widespread world support for the US going after the Taliban in Afghanistan, respect and affection has morphed into fear and loathing. From being regarded as a liberator and force for stability, the US is now an invader and a destabilising force around the world. And all of this was achieved long before Newsweek's apparently erroneous report.

For Americans with memories longer than the last Freedom Fries commercial (ie the 48% who voted against Bush), this wouldn't be a surprise. Instead, they would be crying real tears over how this man has transformed their beloved country into something a whole generation of Americans fought and died to defeat in WW2.

It cannot be a mark of a real democracy for prisoners either rightfully or wrongfully detained, to be tortured to death without consequences for the perpetrators, as shown in a report leaked to the press by a true American patriot. Nor can it be the behaviour of a true Christian, to prosecute an illegal war founded on a pack of lies, and then failing to jail a Defence Secretary and General Officers for prisoner abuse and extra-judicial murders in custody. I mean, upon which of Jesus' teachings are Dubya's actions based?

Given the sordid picture of the torture, abuse and murder committed by American interrogators in the name of "protecting" America, do we seriously think that these interrogators wouldn't place Korans in toilets?

Come on, George, give us all a break! Unlike your supporters, we didn't come down in the last rain shower of crocodile tears. The only thing wrong about the Newsweek report is that there weren't incriminating pictures to prove it.

A nation can be lauded or damned by the actions of its paramount leader. For now, the latter is the case for America, notwithstanding the bucket loads of crocodile tears shed by the White House.

Iraq haunts middle America

2005-05-08T18:33:00.000+10:00

Another excellent documentary by PBS titled "The Soldier's Heart" can be seen online at the PBS website. This time, it focusses on the post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) suffered by troops returning from Iraq.

It is an interesting downstream effect of the war about which nobody in the White House wants to know. After all, the troops are in the end, simply instruments of a morally flawed neo-con policy. The good consequence of the troops suffering from PTSD is that it will bring home to middle America, the realities of not making war the option of last resort in solving problems.

The opening segment of this documentary has a former Marine sergeant recounting how he and his men killed an Iraqi woman going about her business. He says she was ordered to stop but failed to comply and so she was, to use his words, "torn to pieces" by the combined barrage of some 15 high powered assault weapons.

Before blaming the woman for her own terrible death, stop to think for a moment what could have been in her mind.

She's being yelled at by foreign soldiers in a language she does not understand. They are gesturing wildly at her but she's not sure whether they want her to stop or approach. Their gestures confuse her because they are not ones with which she's familiar in her country. She fears if she stops she might be thought not to be complying with orders she doesn't understand. On the other hand, if she walks slowly towards them, and makes no sudden moves, then maybe that's the safest thing to do.

Unfortunately for her, it is precisely her continued approach that causes the soldiers to open fire on her. That they do and after they tear her to pieces with their bullets, what do they find? A small white flag clutched in her hand. This must be winning hearts and minds in Iraq!

Imagine if you will, Chinese soldiers in the streets of some dusty town in Texas. Yelling in Mandarin to your mother, sister, wife, daughter or girlfriend to stop and raise her arms. Except that since your loved one doesn't understand Mandarin, she fails to comply. She is then torn to pieces by the combined barrage of 15 assault rifles.

It's fair to guess not too many relatives will walk away from exacting revenge, will they? Hell, if your loved one was butchered like that, wouldn't you want to return the favour too?

Blair bleeds a little more

2005-05-06T15:08:00.000+10:00

Tony Blair was returned to power with a greatly reduced majority, the BBC reports. The Labor Party's majority has been reduced from a historic high of 161 seats to a more humbling 66 seats; a fall of 59%. In a reasonably performing economy; in which voters tend to stick with an incumbent, the British people have sent a strong message to their PM.

Contrasted against the election results for Dubya and John Howard in Australia, we can conclude that the British public do care much more about the illegal war in which their leader involved their country. Despite their cousins in the US and Australia voting to endorse the illegal war, the British voters have said notwithstanding the good economic management Blair has exercised, they disapprove of his part in the Iraqi Misadventure.

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (ie Treasurer), is now in a good position to depose Blair as party leader, and therefore PM. With his personal support within the party at an all time low, Tony Blair will have to work some slippery tricks to hold onto his leadership.

Under the British Parliamentary system, a prime minister serves at the pleasure of his party. For it is the party and its policies which the voters choose to run the country. If the leader of the party then deviates from the policies which got them the vote in the first place, then the party disciplines the leader by replacing him or her. In this case, Gordon Brown is likely to move against Tony Blair sooner rather than later.

The anger within the Labor Party against Blair's conduct burns bright. Senior ministers like Robin Cook and Clare Short resigned because Blair took part in an illegal war. Added to that anger, is the anger of principled civil servants appalled by the wanton abandonment of international rules of conduct in relation to the Iraq War. That's why we saw the leak of a few documents damning Blair's actions just before the election.

Remember that these people did not resign over small issues. They resigned over significant matters of principle. After all, if they were pursuing their own interests, why would they have resigned from a government presiding over a reasonably robust economy?

The best thing they can do for the UK now is to seek Blair's replacement as leader of the Labor Party. It will go a long way towards atoning for the crimes he committed in their name.

Beyond Freedom Fries

2005-05-02T12:57:00.000+10:00

When France declined (along with many other countries) to support Dubya in his quest for phantom NBC weapons in Iraq, middle America responded in a fit of pique by renaming its much consumed French Fries to Freedom Fries. So patriotism was infused into its daily rituals; "I'll have a Big Mac, Freedom Fries and a bunker buster bomb, to go, thanks!"

Now that Congress and Dubya's own investigators proved no such NBC weapons existed, perhaps the misguided patriotism should be redirected towards more meaningful pursuits. Such as really understanding why so many people outside the US opposed the illegal war.

In June 2003, the US House of Representatives' Committee on International Relations tried to do precisely this when it invited Justin Vaisse, a Visiting Fellow of Brookings Institution, to give testimony on why France opposed the war.

His address is extremely erudite and perspicacious. I highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to learn how deeply felt and sophisticated, is world sentiment against a rampaging neo-con administration.

If middle America understands what Justin Vaisse said, then perhaps it'd rename its much loved Freedom Fries to Neo-Con Fries.

Useless self investigations

2005-04-26T12:04:00.000+10:00

It was interesting to read about US military investigators "clearing" their soldiers of wrongfully killing Italian agent, Nicola Calipari. I'm sure this will accepted unquestioningly by an Italian public who opposed their government's involvement in Iraq in the first place! To survive politically, PM Berlusconi will have to add Italy's name to the incredible shrinking Coalition of the Willing soon.

Another interesting piece of politico-military farce was the US military Inspector-General's report "clearing" top brass of any knowledge, involvement and wrongdoing in the disgraceful abuses and deaths of prisoners detained in Iraq and Afghanistan; the most publicly notorious of which was Abu Ghraib. I'm sure this report will erase any doubts we all have of a cover up.

Did I also mention that Dubya is a card carrying member of the Democrat Party working under cover?

The events mentioned above, are but just two examples where the US military is a law unto itself; answerable in theory, only to the commander-in-chief, the president. But of course, we know how anxious he is for accountability to be laid at his doorstep. That must have been why he re-appointed Rummie as Secretary of Defence!

Take the prison abuses and murders issue for example.

Do we not think it a little far-fetched that identical methods of torture, abuse and murder across prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan operated by the US military aren't the results of an official policy? Is it possible for independent and separate groups of half-witted hill billy hick junior GIs to systematically implement identical techniques across so many facilities? Do we really believe that all these activities can occur for so long without the knowledge of the top brass, and not be under their orders?

The US military loves to brag about its water-tight chain of command and of the professionalism of its personnel. Yet, in the above cases, the top brass claim not to know a skerrit of what happened! How can they have it both ways?

In truth, the US military's history is less than stellar. Just ask the families of women and girls raped and murdered by US troops in modern day Okinawa and Korea. Despite protests from the local courts, the US military spirited the accused soldiers out of those countries to avoid trial. In most legal systems around the world, including that of the US, helping a suspect to flee legal action for a crime, is itself, a crime. And it's punishable with a jail sentence.

The question is why does the US government not allow its personnel to be tried for crimes committed in a civilian jurisdiction of a foreign country?

Is it because it doesn't believe their personnel will get a fair trial? Are the Japanese and Korean legal systems not good enough for US military personnel? If this is true, then the US government is really saying that Japan and Korea aren't democracies, are they? So why not go spread neo-con freedom and democracy there too?

It is a fact that the Bush regime also refuses to join the International Criminal Court (ICC). The refusal is based upon the belief that to do so, would invite "groundless" charges of war crimes against US military personnel. That would be fine provided the US military is capable of holding its own accountable. But cases of Nicola Calipari, Abu Ghraib and of many Japanese and Korean women raped by US soldiers suggest otherwise.

In 1945, the US liberated concentration camp prisoners, actively prosecuted war crimes committed by German and Japanese officials and military personnel in an international court. In many cases, senior officials were hanged even though they did not commit the actual murders of their victims.

In 2005, Bush refuses to join the ICC, launches a illegal war (an act identical to war crimes charges made against Germany and Japan), maintains concentration camps, and refuses to jail a Cabinet Secretary and any general for prisoners who were abused and murdered.

Bush has really changed America, hasn't he?

Changing the UN

2005-04-21T11:02:00.000+10:00

The deservedly bruising round of US Senate hearings over Bush's nominee for the US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, does raise some interesting issues for the UN. Bolton is famous for his fierce criticism of the UN, and is remembered for his comment that you could lose the top 10 floors of the UN building and it wouldn't be noticed.

It is a truism that the UN does move ponderously and sometimes not at all, over issues. But for a body which is comprised of 191 nations, all pursuing their own agendas, it's a wonder it actually achieved some of its past accomplishments at all. Having said that, when neo-con reactionaries complain bitterly about the UN, what they really are saying is that they are having a tough time getting their way.

Surely it must occur to even the most dim-witted neo-con, that in anything resembling a democratic organisation, democracy means that people are permitted to hold different views to others. But I guess in a neo-con democracy, liberty and freedom means that you are free to have any view you wish as long as it's identical to mine!

Given that the Bush regime is such a trenchant opponent of multilateral international organisations; notwithstanding the fact that the US was a foundation member of just about all of them, the UN should really reconsider its position.

For all of Bush's criticisms of the UN, he has offered no alternative that other member nations (save for a sycophantic few) will countenance. After all, few countries feel a great need to subordinate their interests to those of a man who, until becoming president, hadn't even ventured outside his own country.

Neo-cons claim that fewer and fewer UN decisions go their way even as the US sporadically pays its UN dues. I wonder if I can use the same logic with the tax man when I file my next return? Levity aside, the UN is faced with a serious issue here. Perhaps it's time for real change at the UN.

The first change that should be made is to relocate the UN HQ to Paris, where UNESCO has always been situated or to Geneva, where many UN meetings are held. Distance from Washington DC will help diminish the neo-cons' perception (created by physical proximity) that the UN is just a recalcitrant arm of the US government bureaucracy.

The second change should be to cut America's share of UN dues to address the neo-cons' complaints of a lousy UN-votes-for-money deal. Were Japan to miraculously gain a permanent seat on the Security Council, its share of UN dues should be raised dramatically. Since they believe that their money over the years has bought an unspoken national apology for wartime atrocities, then they should have no problems with more cheque book diplomacy.

The third change should be to put the Bush regime and any other sycophants on notice that their claim that the UN cannot work without US leadership will be tested. With the UN's relocation, the EU would be forced into more assertive leadership around the world. China's influence will rise naturally with its economic development, and they would wish to become more engaged with an invigorated EU.

And where does this leave Dubya?

Out in the cold, being and feeling special, and free to engage with the world - or not.

When the Cold War ended, we optimistically thought that a unipolar world under US leadership would be benignly positive. We were wrong. Instead, a schoolyard bully rules the roost and long standing multilateral organisations and frameworks created by the US (under more enlightened presidents) have been trashed.

Relocating the UN to Europe would shift the schoolyard elsewhere and create room for other members to get on with growing in, and contributing to a more positive environment. An invigorated EU along with an ascendant China and India, will gradually create a multipolar world in which one of the poles, the US, runs the risk of near total isolation whenever it chooses to act unilaterally.

While it's true that the US has the greatest military power, it's funded by foreign sourced savings - principally from China and Japan. Were China to turn off the money tap, and if along the way, the OPEC currency base is switched from US dollars to say Euros, the ensuing damage to the US economy would cause Bush to think again about another illegal war.

Standing back a bit, it surprises me to be even canvassing these ideas. Yet, the troubling thing is that these ideas would find great support amongst many people outside the US.

How have things come to be like this - ie America versus the world? What has happened to the great respect and affection people around the world once had for the US? Could one country be so right and so many others be so wrong? Can one country do no wrong for all time?

If such a country exists, then it must be heaven in Dubya's vocabulary. But we know that at least 48% of US voters didn't agree with him. Instead, they are in purgatory, along with the rest of us anti neo-cons outside heaven's gate.

Anti-Japanese violence or something more?

2005-04-18T15:01:00.000+10:00

The headlines say it all. Recent anti-Japanese protests and semi-riots in China have caused much anger and concern in Tokyo. Indignant Japanese government demands for apologies from China have been rebuffed. Relations between an ascendent China and a stagnant Japan have never been more strained.

In an earlier post "Japan's repressed memory syndrome", it was pointed out that official refusal for an open and honest examination of Japan's wartime atrocities continues to create distrust and resentment not only in a newly nationalistic China, but also in other East Asian countries. In contrast to Germany's frank and earnest efforts in squaring with that country's past, the Japanese government's attitude is self-damaging.

Officially, the Bush regime, together with approving barks from its faithful Australian lap dog Howard, sees the US, Australia and Japan as the bulwarks of freedom and democracy (neo-con style) in Asia. However, the hidden agenda is to contain a China on the rise.

It's a hallmark of all three political administrations to be the world's greatest hypocrites masquerading as the greatest forces for truth, justice and the neo-con way. So, let's deal with each country in turn, to set the proper perspective.

Until the arrival of the Bush regime, the US had been regarded by moderates in Asia as the principle stabilising force in a region wracked by periodic wars and political unrest. Despite its well-known erratic changes of direction in foreign policy, America was traditionally regarded as well-meaning but naive at times.

But the world changed forever with the arrival of the Texas Ranger via a stolen presidency in 2000. Instead of being a global stabiliser, the US under Bush has now become the chief destabilising force throughout the world. Trashing a long cherished multilateral approach to problem solving, we are all familiar with the new unilateral war-mongering approach built on a foundation of deceit.

By the way, the illegal invasion of Iraq, unsanctioned by the UN Security Council simply emboldened China to pass its recent anti-secession law directed against Taiwan. For if it's perfectly acceptable for the US to invade a non-threatening country based on a pack of lies, then it's infinitely more acceptable for China to invade Taiwan to prevent it from seceding. At least China has far more facts to bolster its case for reunification by invasion than Bush did when invading Iraq to destroy mythical NBC weapons!

Now to Australia.

When the Australian PM, John Howard, made two notorious comments on two different occasions, he did so to boost his domestic political standing amongst his parochial support base. These two comments caused great consternation amongst his neighbours; which he promptly dismissed by saying he governs for Australians not Asians. Unfortunately for him and his country, they have come back to haunt him in recent times.

The earlier comment was that Australia saw itself as "deputy sheriff" to the US in the region, while the later comment was Australia would make pre-emptive strikes into neighbouring countries if it felt they posed a threat. Underlying these comments is a traditional sense of superiority over, and racism towards non-white Asia, Howard and his ilk have always harboured. This is not a harsh assessment of him at all.

As an aside, remember that he co-opted supporters of the Right wing anti-Asian ex-member of parliament, Pauline Hanson, into voting for him in 2001 and then again in 2004. In 1989, dear old Pauline claimed hysterically, that Australia was being "swamped" by Asian immigrants. At that time, Howard refused to correct her with facts but instead endorsed her inflammatory claims.

For the record, from the Australian government's own Bureau of Statistics data; in 1991, Australian residents born in East and South Asia (South Asia means India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) comprised of a humungous 4.2% of the total population. Breeding and immigrating like rats, the East and South Asians grew to constitute a whopping 5.6% of the population by 2000. Now that's what I call being "swamped" by Asian immigrants.

Just think, by the year 2285, Australia will be positively over-run with 50% of the population being Asian! Howard and his ilk had better start building refugee boats to flee to the US now!

One wonders what Howard thinks about the 6.3% of residents from the UK and Ireland or the 12.5% from Europe including the former USSR? But maybe they're exempt because they look more like him! Perish the thought - how dare one insinuate that he's racist?

As for Howard's threat of pre-emptive strikes along the lines of Dubya's now patently flawed Iraqi model, he hardened his position by refusing to sign a treaty of amity and cooperation which the ASEAN countries, China, Japan and New Zealand have signed. He reserved the right to act unilaterally and militarily even though none of the countries in the region threaten Australia. Is this stabilising or destabilising?

It's within this context, that his recent attempts to gain an invitation to the East Asia summit have been rebuffed. And while Japan, as part of the US, Australia and Japan axis of neo-con folly, has supported Australia's inclusion in the summit, nobody else has supported Australia. After years of being told by Howard that he bows to nobody (except Bush), least of all, Asians, why would anyone want to help him contradict himself now?

So the message sent to Howard loudly and clearly, is simple. If you want to brag about your special relationship with Dubya and behave as though you're special, then you'll be left out in the cold, to remain special. And oh, by the way, you really should stand closer to the urinal. It's shorter than you think!

Now for Japan.

On the surface, the tiff with China is about school textbooks sanitising Japan's wartime atrocities. But as William Horsley's BBC article reports, it's symptomatic of a deeper problem in Japan. As observed in "Japan's repressed memory syndrome", the refusal to openly and honestly acknowledge and apologise for wrongs simply doesn't convey repentance.

So China and any other Asian country for that matter, would be perfectly justified in asking why Japan should be allowed a permanent seat on the UN Security Council over say, Germany. At least the latter has shown more contrition in a year than Japan has ever shown since WWII.

In geo-political terms, Japan is as alarmed as the US, at China's growing economic strength and international political clout. To put it simply, the number 1 (US) and number 2 (Japan) top dogs in the world economy want to remain so. They wish to defy the inevitable decline of their power, as it's always happened to other great powers throughout history, even though the tide of history runs against them.

The question for us is whether these two top dogs will step back gracefully as Britain has done, or will they continue to deny the inevitable and cause wars and misery in the process?

Rewarding deceit, dishonour and disingenuity

2005-04-01T08:50:00.000+10:00

What a surprise it is for us to learn that Iraq did not possess NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) weapons which posed a clear and present danger to the US. We didn't need two inquiries (Congress and now Robb-Silberman) to know this. To use a colloquial term, it was bloody obvious before the war.

Of course, the neo-cons have been running the line that the invasion freed the oppressed Iraqis etc. But that wasn't the reason Dubya spouted for going to war. It was the NBC weapons, stupid. And oh, by the way, tell the dead Iraqi civilians that they are free to vote now. Surely, they'll fall on bended knee to worship Dubya!

Following release of the inquiry's findings, no less than the head of the Bush regime, Dubya, himself intoned the US knows "disturbingly little" about enemy weapons programs! Enemy weapons programs aren't the only things Bush and his neo-cons know little about. Try integrity and accountability.

In a masterful act of disingenuity, Dubya also claims that intelligence needs to be "timely and accurate" in order for the US to "adjust to those threats and adjust our capabilities to those threats." Then this whopping great disingenuous line,

"The cost of underestimating a threat could be tens of thousands of lives."

What does he mean could? It did cost tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths. But since the Bush regime deliberately chose to count only US casualties, there is no "official" death tally of unimportant non-American civilian casualties. Yet we have the strange spectacle of the Pentagon rubbishing the estimate of 100,000 deaths reported in the British medical journal The Lancet.

Wait a minute, these guys are trying to have it both ways. On the one hand, they claim not to know what the Iraqi casualties are because they haven't bothered to count it; and on the other hand, when Western medical agencies in Iraq estimate 100,000 deaths, the Pentagon rubbishes the claim!

Meanwhile, back to the source of truth, justice and the neo-con way. Dubya rewards his principal hench men and woman (who helped prosecute an illegal war based on lies) with reappointment of one as Secretary of Defence, appointment of another as Secretary of State, and yet another as Head of the World Bank. It looks like there won't be a war crimes trial for anyone, anytime soon!

Now, is it any wonder why so many not-important-enough-to-be-counted-when-dead non-Americans absolutely despise the US? The great shame of it all, is that the nearly half of Americans who also oppose the neo-cons, are also tarred with the same brush.

Unfortunately, they will continue to suffer for Dubya's sins long after he leaves office because memories die long and hard when others lose loved ones for a lie.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, the neo-cons forgot or didn't heed some wise words of warning from an honoured soldier who served his country in war and as a president in peace time.

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."

Do we think Dwight D. Eisenhower would have ordered the invasion of Iraq using a pack of lies?

Or would he have thought it was just a bad April's Fool Day joke with Dubya as the Fool?

Courageous and principled civil servants

2005-03-24T16:42:00.000+11:00

It was astounding to read a BBC report about a former senior law officer in the UK's Foreign Office expressing the firm view that the invasion of Iraq was a "crime of aggression." Elizabeth Wilmshurst, Deputy Legal Adviser to the Foreign Office, made the claim in her resignation letter on the eve of the war.

In her strongly worded letter, she was unequivocal about the extremely dangerous precedent such an invasion would set for future actions by other countries; not to mention the complete illegality of the immediate invasion.

"I regret that I cannot agree that it is lawful to use force against Iraq without a second Security Council resolution to revive the authorisation given in SCR 678. I do not need to set out my reasoning; you are aware of it.

{Section is censored by the UK government at this point}

I cannot in conscience go along with advice - within the Office or to the public or Parliament - which asserts the legitimacy of military action without such a resolution, particularly since an unlawful use of force on such a scale amounts to the crime of aggression; nor can I agree with such action in circumstances which are so detrimental to the international order and the rule of law."

You have to applaud the high principle that this British civil servant upholds. For it is upon this standard of integrity and honour that modern liberal democracies become beacons of high morality to others.

In contrast, we must fervently hope that the deceit, dishonour and disingenuity with which Tony Blair led Britain to prosecute the illegal war, will be soundly punished at the forthcoming UK general elections.

I hope that British voters show that they will not tolerate immoral and unprincipled "leadership" even as US and Australian voters did the exact opposite by re-electing Bush and Howard.

Beware the Ides of March

2005-03-17T10:34:00.000+11:00

The BBC reported that the great global regime changer, Dubya the Last, just nominated former US Deputy Secretary of Defence, Paul Wolfowitz, as next head of the World Bank.

As one of the quartet of neo-cons injected into the Pentagon, Wolfie (Wolfowitz), together with Rummie (Rumsfeld), Dougie (Douglas Feith) and Richie (Richard Perle) successfully spread the neo-con clap into what they considered to be an insufficiently Right wing defence establishment. In the process, some very genuinely honourable senior officers were shafted (see post "Good riddance to another neo-con") for questioning among other things, the morality of going to war on a pack of lies.

By nominating Wolfie, the neo-con agenda has now been made clear. Remember that this is the man who was also intimately involved in fabricating the pack of lies used to justify invading Iraq. Now Dubya the Last wants him to corrupt the development agenda of the World Bank into an instrument of neo-con imperialist policy.

The Bush regime claims that it has turned over a new leaf and now wants to work with the international community rather than against it. So that must be why the US attempted to replace the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammed El Baradei, with one of its most obseqious lap dogs, the Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer. The former was far too even handed for Dubya's liking. Thankfully, the international community didn't back the US on this one.

Which brings me back to Wolfie. Since a number of world bodies have proven resistant to the idea of rolling over on Dubya's command, the new disingenuous neo-con strategy is to replace these organisations' leadership with lap dogs who will roll over and obey. And since Wolfie is well trained as one of the original neo-con attack pomeranians, who's better qualified to corrupt the World Bank's agenda?

Old Europe must veto Wolfie's appointment and send him packing to the dog house. Or it'll truly be a case of Beware the Ides of March for the international community.

U.S. military says 26 inmate deaths may be homicide

2005-03-16T00:05:00.000+11:00

The New York Times reported that US Army and Navy investigators have concluded or suspect that at least 26 criminal homicides have been committed against prisoners held in US custody. Now contrast this against the official Pentagon report about detention and interrogation techniques practised by the US military.

The report's author, Vice Admiral Albert Church, concluded that the abuse of, and death of "only six" prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan resulted from breakdown of discipline and not flawed policies or misguided direction from commanders or Pentagon officials. Yeah, right. Did I also mention that the Pope is really Ayatollah Khomeni's long lost twin?

So now we have it officially. Only half-witted junior GIs were responsible for systematic torture and murder across several prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, we're assured that no torture and murder was committed in Guantanamo Bay. How do we know? Because the Pentagon says so! Should we not feel a teensy weensy bit doubtful about the official Party line?

After all, isn't asking the Pentagon to investigate itself the same as asking the ex-chief of Worldcom to audit that company's accounts? The difference is that Bernie Ebbers will probably get a life sentence for causing his investors to lose their dough. Whereas, a general or two, assorted senior CIA operatives and of course, dear old Rummie will get away with murder. Literally.

How's that for a stunning demonstration of America's values? You see, in Bush's America of democracy and liberty, the greatest crime you can commit is to cause people to lose money. Losing lives through unlawful murder is perfectly fine since it's in the service of spreading neo-con freedom and liberty throughout the world.

And oh, the half-witted junior GIs will be punished for being stupid enough to take trophy pictures and sending them to friends. Do we seriously think ANY investigation or press exposure would have occurred if there weren't any incriminating pictures?

If you think the torture and murder would have come to light regardless, then you should have no problem believing that there is true accountability and integrity in a neo-con democracy. You know, the type which Dubya wants to spread around the world like a neo-con virus.

Now why is it few people now see the US as a model for anything good?

Mirror, mirror, on the wall

2005-03-01T10:26:00.000+11:00

I choked on my Freedom Fries when I read about the US State Dept's report criticising Russia and Saudi Arabia (among others) for egregious human rights violations. Among the litany of transgressions were rigged elections, erosion of government accountability, torture and abuse of prisoners by security forces, arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detentions etc.

We must exist in a parallel universe constructed by George Orwell where bad means good, black is white and wrong is right in the lexicon of neo-cons.

In my books, rigged elections means getting your brother and his hench woman to help you steal a presidency. Erosion of government accountability means prosecuting an illegal war using lies and deception which would make Hitler proud; without so much as roasting Fried Rice in a hot wok.

Or not jailing a Secretary of Defence (but re-appointing him) and General Officer instead of half-witted GIs for the systematic torture and murder of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and in America's other little outposts of tyranny. Arbitrary arrests means detaining civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq just because someone claimed they were terrorists, in order to receive a large reward in return.

What puzzles me to no end is how such morally worthless and hypocritical reports can be issued by an administration proven to be deceptive, dishonourable and disingenuous, and hoped to be regarded with authority and credibility?

I mean, they must be smoking some really good dope over at Foggy Bottom.

Do you think that if we ask nicely, we can have some too?

Can Dubya the Peacemaker mend fences?

2005-02-25T10:27:00.000+11:00

Beneath the positive and negative rhetoric surrounding Bush's fence mending visit to Europe, I suspect that little has changed in the minds of the public in the US and European electorates. It was very interesting to read posts on the BBC News website from both sides of the Bush divide.

If you read between the lines, I think you can easily detect that Bush's visit has done little to change the deeply polarised camps.

The following post generally sums up the views of Bush's most ardent supporters:

"Bush doesn't need to mend ties with Europe. He is giving those countries that opposed the war on terror, or in Iraq, a chance to re-board the freedom train, or the human rights train. I see this as an act of a forgiving leader with the mindset of a free world able to negotiate together for a more free tomorrow. How many 9/11s would there have been had he not acted the way he did?
Mike Mac, NC, USA"

Reading the above post would warm the ammo belts of all neo-con warriors. It means their campaign of disingenuity, disinformation and deceit has been wildly successful.

The problem with this world view is that Bush didn't invade Iraq to bring neo-con liberty and freedom to that blighted dark corner of the world. It was the alleged NBC weapons, stupid. Would American voters and recalcitrant non-Americans have supported an illegal war if it was posed as a mission to lay tracks for the freedom train in Iraq? That's the $300b question isn't it?

In the mean time, Bush supporters like Mike can ride that freedom train on their own, as far as the European public is concerned. But don't ask the European taxpayers to help pay for the fare.

In their simplistic "Either you're for us or against us" world view, the neo-cons are unable to understand that true friends and not obsequious sycophants, do not genuflect in silence but do dare to have differing views without writing off the other party as "old Europe" in a fit of self-righteous pique. Another poster puts it nicely:

"Cultural bridges are not built from abject obedience. America's superior power does not make its policy judgment superior. The invasion of Iraq has exacerbated the problem of Islamic terrorism. The US ignores global warming. Its economic policies are stifling the global economy. Europeans are not obliged to indulge policies that are simply wrong.
Melissa, London, UK"

If Melissa is wrong in her summary of the European public's mood, then neo-cons should ask why dear old Tony didn't jump at the PR "coup" of Bush conferring with his trusted British pooch, sorry, friend, before visiting the recalcitrant continent? Could it be that Tony is worried such a visit would be a PR disaster for his re-election campaign? Or was he just too "busy" to hob nob with the most powerful man in the world?

Sadly for the 48% of US voters who opposed Bush, they have to endure another four years of adverse consequences of the majority's choice. And hope like hell that anti-Bush sentiment doesn't morph into widespread anti-Americanism as Dubya drives his freedom train onward towards the Grand Canyon.

"No, George W. Bush cannot repair the damage he has done to our relations with Europe. It will take someone else, the next president, to do that. How can he repair what he has done when he continues to believe he is always right? You can't mend fences by saying, "Sorry about that, but I'm still right."
Jeff, USA"

"Not a chance. Bush burned the bridges by pulling out of Kyoto, undermining the UN and invading Iraq without international backing. If Bush was serious about rebuilding bridges he would engage with Europe on climate change. The world needs America to take a responsible lead on this. Instead, Bush continues to ignore the rest of the world.
Nick Davies, Newquay, UK"

"In terms of importance to the global economy I believe the USA has now passed its zenith. I don't think any amount of military might can prevent its slow decline from hereon in. The sooner the neo-conservatives and the American people realise this and find a way to peacefully reconcile themselves with their place in the new world order the better for all of us.
Steve Kando, Australia"

CIA links terror threat to Iraq

2005-02-17T12:00:00.000+11:00

In his first public testimony during a Senate hearing, the CIA's new director, Porter Goss, told the Senate Intelligence committee, "Those jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism. They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups and networks."

Great Scott! This revelation is brilliant! No wonder Dubya appointed Porter as director of the CIA.

Who would have thought that an illegal war would be opposed by long-time Allies, spark global anti-Americanism, create total chaos in Iraq, and attract extremist Muslims to fight infidels in Iraq? This Einstein should be awarded the neo-con Nobel Prize for intellectual brilliance. Whereas, he only gets a raspberry from the rest of the world for stating the bleeding obvious.

With Einstein running the CIA, Fried Rice at State and Gin Rummie in Defence, I tell you Dubya has a winning team to spread more neo-con liberty and freedom and now, brilliant intellectual insight around the world. Doh!

Now where's my cache of Panadol tablets...

Japan's repressed memory syndrome

2005-02-15T19:37:00.001+11:00

In recent times, Japan has been pushing for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, strongly supported by the Bush administration. Yet on the surface, the neo-cons seem strange bed-fellows for a stronger, more muscular Japan. So why would the neo-cons support a less pacifist Japan? After all, don't the neo-cons want Pax Americana to remain unchallenged forever?

In the world of Realpolitik, a historically pliable Japan, long sub-servient to US foreign policy and needy of military protection makes a great counter-balance to a strengthening China. Having demonstrated time and again that it's prepared to shove back when shoved by the US, China poses the greatest threat to US power and influence in greater East Asia. So it suits the neo-cons to have a strong vassal state at the front doorstep of its enemy. And by supplying the vast bulk of Japan's key weapons systems, de facto control of the Japanese military actually resides with the US.

Many countries in Japan's neighbourhood remember all too well, the last time that country was a significant military power. It wasn't pretty and those memories of savage and brutal occupation die hard. But isn't today's Japan different? After all, since WW2 ended over 60 years ago, whole new generations of Japanese not having any direct connection with that past have been born. This is true and would be of comfort to wary neighbours, were it not for a few concerns.

Unlike Germany, Japan has never officially apologised for atrocities committed against its neighbours during WW2. Not only that, Japanese born after the war don't know and haven't been educated about their country's role and actions in the war. Official school textbooks use bland and inane terms to gloss over some truly savage and barbarous acts against non-combatants.

For example, in 1937, the systematic rape and pillage of Nanjing in which historians estimate some 300,000 civilians were murdered by Japanese Forces, is blandly referred to as the "Nanjing Incident" in history texts. Elsewhere in Asia, as the Imperial Japanese Forces over-ran many countries in a stunning military campaign, civilian populations were warned against collaborating with resistance forces by the indiscriminate arrest and summary executions of young men.

In country after country, city after city, town after town, the same patterns of atrocities were repeated. Yet Japanese government officials and pro-Nationalists until today, still deny or minimise these events, and instead denounce such allegations as politically motivated. They are right about the political motivation but wrong about the spirit and intent of these motivations.

If someone who commits a grievous wrong against you wishes to be reconciled and trusted by you again, two distinct acts must occur to signify a true sense of repentance. The first is acknowledgement of that wrong-doing followed by apology for that wrong-doing. The public acts of acknowledgement and apology are somehow cathartic for both the wrong-doer and wronged.

But Japan's continued refusal to acknowledge and apologise for its atrocities; framed as unnecessary because of having paid war reparations (said by some to be grossly insufficient) as "atonement" and an unnecessary "loss of face" should raise deep concerns - even in the dimmest neo-con mind.

Although the Japanese are generally pacifist and oppose change to Article Nine of their constitution (which forever renounces war, and strictly speaking, forbids Japan from even keeping a military force), the neo-cons want Japan to adopt a more assertive foreign policy backed by greater offensive military forces and weapons.

Imagine the domestic and international uproar if Germany's Chancellor paid an official visit to a tomb where prominent Nazis were buried. Would we not think it troubling that such an act occurred? What would we think if the Chancellor made such official visits an annual exercise? How would the world react if the German government also sanitised school history texts and repudiated responsibility and apologies for atrocities committed during the war?

Yet in 2005, a Japanese PM born after WW2, makes annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine where executed war criminals are buried and where 2.5 million war dead are honoured. Yasukuni was the centre of pro-war sentiment and Emperor-worship before Japan's defeat in 1945. Why would Japan's PM Koizumi not follow Germany's lead and ensure all citizens born after WW2 learn about the country's true deeds?

Could it be he understands that a nation ignorant of the wrongs it has done is far less likely to oppose the wrongs he, as leader, could lead them to do? Don't believe this proposition? Just count how many Bush voters still believe Saddam had NBC weapons and was going to use them against the US! Ignorance is bliss in a neo-con democracy, as you can fool all of the people, all of the time.

It appears the neo-cons believe that a country which is unable to frankly and openly acknowledge its past deeds, prevents its citizens from learning the truthful history of their country and is led by a man who pays homage to war criminals, is worthy of US support for a permanent seat at the Security Council.

Perhaps the neo-cons should beware of feeding a tiger that may eventually bite them.

Good riddance to another neo-con

2005-01-31T10:45:00.000+11:00

When Dubya stole, sorry won, the presidency the first time around, he inserted four neo-cons into the Defence establishment. They were Donald Rumsfeld (Rummie), Richard Perle (Richie), Paul Wolfowitz (Wolfie) and Douglas Feith (Dougie). Pledged to uphold the neo-con ideals of hypocrisy, deception and dishonour, these four mouseketeers, sorry musketeers, have wreaked havoc in the Pentagon. Just ask any senior officer in the services what they really think of these characters.

Recently, the BBC reported that Rummie's chief intelligence fabricator, sorry finder, Under-Secretary for Defence, Douglas Feith, resigned citing "personal and family reasons." In case you aren't familiar with corporate speak, that means he was fired. Now what's so special about this faceless neo-con bureaucrat?

For one, he was the Einstein who headed up Rummie's Office of Special Plans (a classic oxymoron in the light of the Iraqi Misadventure). This unit was charged by Dubya with fabricating, sorry finding, "irrefutable intelligence" (now there's another oxymoron) on Iraq's incredible vanishing NBC weapons.

You'd think that with all the vast resources of the CIA, DIA, NSA, XYZ, ABC etc it would be redundant to set up yet another agency to fabricate, sorry find, all this intelligence. After all, we were emphatically told by Dubya that Saddam's naughty weapons program had been running rampant for a decade since Daddy Bush clubbed that tyrant and destroyed his naughty toys in 1991.

Secondly, it was Dougie's fabricated, sorry genuine, intelligence that Dubya used to hoodwink Congress into supporting the Iraqi Misadventure. Yes, yes, I know that officially, the CIA was to blame. But senior Pentagon insiders have given a different account, which goes a long way to explain why the senior brass despise dear old Dougie so much for dragging them into the Iraqi marshes.

Really, if Dubya wanted real evidence, all he needed to do was ask Rummie to front up at the UN Security Council and tell them how he, Rummie, visited the tyrant in 1985 to re-establish relations on behalf of dear old Ronnie (bless the gipper). It would have been more convincing to the UN.

Over tea and date pudding, Rummie and the favoured tyrant must have closed a deal for the US to supply bio pathogens delivered in May 1986. This sordid episode of supplying bio weapons material was exposed by a bi-partisan Congressional investigation headed up by Senators Don Riegle and Alfonse D'Amato.

Pathogens supplied to the neo-cons' then favoured tyrant were charming stuff like Anthrax, Botulin, Salmonella, E. Coli, Tetanus etc., destined not for Saddam's Imperial Kitchens but for bio weapons development. For example, if you look at item 12 in the list of supplied pathogens, the Anthrax (Bacillus Anthracis) was made by a G. G. Wright of Fort Detrick. Fort Detrick in Maryland, is the US Army's Centre for Biological Warfare.

Nice to see US trade exports did so well under the neo-cons. I guess they had to pay for Ronnie's monstrous budget deficit in any way possible. I wonder if Rummie can spell and understand the Latin phrase, "mea culpa?"

But I digress.

In the lead up to the war, Rummie brushed aside the combined wisdom of the service chiefs who expressed strong opposition to a war, in order to satisfy a president hellbent on having one. In fact, there is an excellent PBS online documentary about how Rummie subverted and continues to subvert the military chain of command for such political purposes. I guess there's nothing like a war to legitimise a stolen presidency.

Along the way, Rummie and Wolfie shafted an honourable soldier and Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, when he gave truthful answers (as one is expected to do so) to questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee three weeks before the war.

They shafted a highly respected soldier who unlike them, has actually put his life on the line for his country and even lost a foot in battle, all because he said things which contradicted the neo-cons' agenda. It was a disgraceful and dishonourable act of bastardry which the uniformed services won't forget too soon.

But Richie and Dougie have now departed the hallowed halls of the Pentagon leaving Rummie and Wolfie to hold the fort, so to speak. At least the service chiefs can take some comfort that two are down and out, and there are just two more to go.

Can Dubya spell the word Hypocrite?

2005-01-30T19:00:00.000+11:00

After WW2 ended, the victorious Allies tried German military and civilian officials for war crimes including torture and murder. Quite properly, those found guilty of these offences were either jailed or in egregious cases, executed. Being a key member of Allied forces, the US exercised some zeal in bringing war criminals to justice.

How times have changed.

In a sobering editorial in the Washington Post, we learn that accountability and leadership by example are nowhere to be found in a Bush White House. That must be because they sincerely believe that in the conduct of their messianic mission from God, they can do no wrong. Which God they serve isn't clear because Jesus of the New Testament certainly didn't teach torture and murder as the truth, way and life!

So we have on the one hand, a president claiming to guided by his religion (one which condemns torture and murder), and on the other hand, a president hastening slowly to root out and prosecute torturers and murderers under his command. If Bush showed as much as 1% of the zeal with which he went to war, in seeking to punish generals and not just half-witted junior GI Joes, then he might have some claim to credibility. Otherwise, he should get spelling lessons on the word "hypocrite."

Passing of an era or naivety?

2005-01-29T18:49:00.000+11:00

I was in my last six months of graduate school when news broke about the drama in Tien An Men Square. Images and sounds of shooting gave a hint of the brutal reaction to a campaign of civil disobedience by students, farmers, ordinary town folk. In the ensuing fallout, one of the scape goats for the uprising was the then Secretary-General of the Chinese Communist Party, Zhao Ziyang. It is with his death this month that many pro-reformers mourn the passing of an era.

Today, students know little about those events and those who do, have a different view to how they would have acted. As the BBC reports, today's students view their predecessors as naive and misguided. A student said that while she wasn't entirely satisfied with today's society [in China], she was convinced that the leadership was acting in the best interests of its citizens. If this is in fact what citizens believe today, then Beijing has succeeded in stabilising its society. Or has it?

Most estimates, official and otherwise, peg the rural unemployed at about a mind-boggling 280 million people. With the liberalisation, many SOEs (State Owned Enterprises) closed their doors, unable to survive in a market economy which demanded efficiencies, quality standards and products they simply couldn't deliver. While many tens of millions have found work in new factories, still more languish in the countryside.

The 280 million unemployed are part of the cost of transitioning from a command economy to a market economy. The story was similar for Poland when it took the plunge as well. But the difference is China's vast population. Any time you take even a modest percentage of 1.6 billion people, you still end up with numbers denominated in millions.

Problems confronting the central government are manifold. Although the economy has been expanding at a rapid clip, the resulting wealth hasn't percolated out to the inland provinces. What little that has seeped inland, has been dipped into many times by corrupt officials. In fact, one of the main reasons driving the civil uprising in 1989 centered around disgust with corruption in the Communist Party.

To its credit, Beijing has been dealing with serious problems like official corruption in typical fashion - ie trial followed by execution. The question is despite apparent determination at the top, does Beijing have sufficient time to deal with the armies of unemployed, corruption, an overheating economy, insolvent banks, pollution, degraded water supplies, energy shortages etc. before the country implodes?

I think Beijing believes that if they can accelerate the sharing of wealth throughout the country, it will buy them time to grapple with the very long list of problems. But not on Beijing's to-do list is bringing "freedom and liberty" Bush style to the yearning masses. 1.6 billion people running around doing whatever the hell they please, simply won't fix the unemployment, corruption, insolvent banks etc.

Take for example, a former US colony, the Philippines. Despite the US moulding that country's government into an image of itself, corruption is rife, its citizens are the country's largest trade export, and the five wealthiest families still monopolise over 95% of land in the country. All the process did was to entrench the wealthy land-owning oligarchy.

Over decades, numerous attempts at land reform and redistribution have been defeated in the Filipino congress. Senators and congressmen are either wealthy land-owners themselves or have been co-opted by them. So much for government by the people, for the people. Really, it's fantasy to believe inequalities, broken infrastructure etc will be magically fixed with the arrival of freedom and liberty, Bush style or otherwise.

The bottom line for the average person in China is that they want their material needs met first, regardless of political ideology. Being pragmatic people, I suspect they now understand that you can't eat freedom or liberty nor is it much good if some form of government is absent. Just ask the newly liberated Iraqis.

Blair clubs Bush with a powder puff

2005-01-28T18:17:00.000+11:00

At the World Economic Forum, the New York Times reported that Tony Blair rebuked his old pal Dubya, for behaving as a unilateral bully in the global school yard.

I choked on my corn flakes when Blair spouted, "If America wants the rest of the world to be part of the agenda it has set, it must be part of their agenda, too. It can do so, secure in the knowledge that what people want is not for America to concede but to engage."

That's a bit rich coming from someone who was up to his eyeballs in that farcical Broadway musical called "Very Genuine Reasons to Invade Iraq." Right now, there's a good bet that a sizeable number of "liberated" Iraqis just want the incredible shrinking "Coalition of the Willing" to get the hell out of their country rather than "engage" as dear old boy Tony calls it.

He then went on to say, "America accepts that terrorism cannot be defeated by military might alone. The more people live under democracy, with human liberty intact, the less inclined they or their states will be to indulge terrorism or to engage in it. By its very nature, such a mission cannot be accomplished alone. It is the very antithesis of isolationism; the very essence of international engagement. It requires long-term cooperation."

Really? So why did the neo-con White House; aided and abetted by Tony Blair and John Howard, thumb their noses at the UN and engage in an illegal war based on lies - proven by no less than the US Congress? Is Blair saying that Bush and his partners in crime now want the rest of the world to help bail them out of the mess in Iraq? That must be some good dope he's been smoking.

Tony, where was your self-serving and self-righteous rhetoric before the invasion of Iraq not after your lies have been exposed and when an election is looming?

Remember that old sign in a crockery shop? It says, "If You Break It, You Pay For It."

Why not pound Pyongyang?

2005-01-27T09:50:00.000+11:00

As I read this BBC article, in a moment of weakness, I wondered if there was some honest agenda behind the neo-con push for an Iranian Misadventure. I mean, why aren't the neo-cons all for pounding the recalcitrant North Koreans instead? I admit that I am.

North Korea has admitted possession of nuclear weapons, launched test missiles which passed over Japan, boasted their missiles can reach Australia, murdered thousands if not millions of their own people, sparked the Korean War, refused IAEA inspections, assassinated South Korean government officials, bombed South Korean airliners, maintained Nazi-like concentration camps, became a foundation member of Dubya's Axis of Evil etc.

What more can Pyongyang do to merit a neo-con war and why hasn't neo-con freedom and liberty descended onto that blighted dark corner of the world?

Could it be that Dubya is concerned what China would think were he to run a little war on their door step? Unlikely. Since when did the neo-cons care about what anyone else thinks? Okay, could it be that Japan has advised restraint and the neo-cons are listening? Again, unlikely. After all, they ignored Japan's calls for restraint before the Iraqi Misadventure.

So as I slowly drifted out of my moment of weakness, hopelessly searching for an honest agenda, it hit me.

IT'S THE OIL, STUPID!

Of course, that bleak country called North Korea has no oil for which US blood and treasure is worth spilling, about whom incredible lies are worth spinning, against whom "close" Allies are worth protecting, and to whom neo-con style of freedom and liberty are worth bringing. Silly me. Doh!

Economic Judgment Day

2005-01-26T23:14:00.000+11:00

There was an interesting article in the New York Times about the resurgence of Europe (yes, mostly Rummie's despised "old" Europe) and the rise of China over the next decade.

With a budget deficit running out of control funded by Japanese and Chinese savings, personal indebtedness at an all time high, and a distinct shift away from a US dollar denominated reserves to Euro based reserves, Pax Americana is experiencing the sort of imperial over-reach Yale historian, Paul Kennedy, discussed in his 1987 book, "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers."

As the neo-cons keep running up the tab with more wars like their ill-fated Iraqi Misadventure, it simply accelerates the pace at which Pax Americana disperses its economic and military power. At worst, her bankers could well decide to stop throwing good money after bad. So as the neo-cons continue to piss away goodwill built over generations with "old" Europe and "new" China, maybe the latter parties will have the last laugh when they pull the economic rug out from under Pax Americana.

Which brings me to my final point. I used to think the incredible shrinking Coalition of the Willing should get out of Iraq as soon as possible. But with Bush's re-election, I now think the opposite. Were the US to depart now, Bush would probably escape the dire economic consequences of his foolish misadventures, leaving his hapless successors to carry the can.

On the other hand, were the US to continue wasting blood and treasure in Iraq, then there is a chance this would hasten economic judgment day. With luck, it would occur during his remaining time in office. Sadly, this may be the only way for his supporters to learn a hard lesson of cause and effect; which would otherwise be lost on them, if economic judgment day was delayed.

Voices of moderation at a mumble

2005-01-25T09:45:00.000+11:00

Malaysia's PM, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is reported to have urged Muslim nations and scholars to speak out and act against Islamic extremism. Badawi is a far more moderate and unbigoted replacement of his predecessor, Mahathir Mohammed. While on the one hand, Mahathir acted against Islamic extremists in his own country, on the other hand, his frequently anti-Western rhetoric gave encouragement to such militant Muslims.

Still, in many ways, it's not difficult to understand the reasons for moderate Muslims not speaking out more vigorously against militant and deviant Islam. With friends like Bush, Blair and Howard engaging in illegal crusader wars in Iraq and now possibly Iran, who wants to be allied with such paragons of moderation and reason?

How would it be for a respected moderate Muslim leader to urge his compatriots to condemn the excesses of Islamic extremism, while in the background, his "friends" Dubya, Tony and John trashed Iraq against UN Security Council wishes? Wouldn't the audience think that the obvious beneficiaries of proscribed Islamic extremism are in fact, the same people who turned Iraq into rubble based on a pack of lies?

I'd suggest that it leaves a moderate Muslim supporting Bush, Blair and Howard in a somewhat invidious position - urging moderation and respect for the law where the reverse was demonstrated by the self-proclaimed agents of freedom and liberty (neo-con style, that is). Sadly, such a moderate Muslim is in grave danger of soon being hopelessly undermined by his hypocritical friends in a possible Iranian Misadventure.

Pax Americana's decline

2005-01-24T15:28:00.000+11:00

There was an interesting article in Slate Magazine about a recent CIA study predicting the decline of US global dominance over the next 15 years. For many non-Americans, it would seem rather obvious, given the tremendous fall in its stature during Dubya's first term. The article's last paragraph highlights some of the key reasons for America's fall in global public affection and respect.

Strange as it may seem, I'd suggest that many non-American critics wouldn't necessarily want to see such a decline; if not for the complete dominance of the executive, legislative and judicial arms of the US government by the neo-con Republicans. But then again, as Bush supporters have trumpeted loudly, a majority of Americans did vote for him - even without help from a finagled Florida ballot! So they shouldn't be surprised to be on the nose when travelling outside of Fort Dubya.

I'd suggest many non-Americans wouldn't give a brass razoo which party, faction or pseudo-religious cult dominates government in the US. After all, the average person is too busy scratching out a living to worry about neo-cons or pinko-Commies in the White House. People certainly don't hate the US nor Bush for freedom practised in the US. I suspect they take exception to people trying to ram "freedom" (neo-con style) down some other nation's collective throat. I mean, who invited this fancy-dress cowboy to our party, anyway?

So as the writer concludes, "If the president really wanted to spread freedom and democracy around the planet, he would (among other things) need to present America as that "model of governance"—to show the world, by its example, that free democracies are successful and worth emulating. Yet the NIC report paints a world where fewer and fewer people look to America as a model of anything. We can't sell freedom if we can't sell ourselves."

Are you listening, Dubya?

We don't want nor need your model of freedom and liberty because we don't buy what we've seen so far.

Fried Rice without credibility

2005-01-23T13:53:00.000+11:00

During her Senate confirmation testimony, Condi Rice said that the Bush administration's actions in Iraq were "difficult and necessary and right." It's a shame those actions were based on proven deceit and disingenuity and disinformation, otherwise her claims would be half-legitimate.

Her statement that the "outposts of tyranny" in the world (ie North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Belarus, Zimbabwe and Myanmar) need "close attention" will sound a lot more credible when the Bush administration jails a general officer instead of junior GI Joes for making Abu Ghraib prison America's own little outpost of tyranny.

Is there true accountability in a neo-con democracy?

2005-01-22T13:35:00.000+11:00

Andrew Sullivan wrote a review of two books detailing the disgraceful abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib Prison and elsewhere in Afghanistan.

In his review, he states, "I confess to finding this transparency both comforting and chilling, like the photographs that kick-started the public's awareness of the affair. Comforting because only a country that is still free would allow such airing of blood-soaked laundry. Chilling because the crimes committed strike so deeply at the core of what a free country is supposed to mean. The scandal of Abu Ghraib is therefore a sign of both freedom's endurance in America and also, in certain dark corners, its demise."

I wonder if this is too sanguine a view to adopt.

After all, Bush re-appointed Rummie and Wolfie to the posts in which they presided over, if not orchestrated this scandal. To date, the administration would have us believe half-witted junior GI Joes were responsible. It beggars belief that only junior GI Joes dreamed up the systematic torture and murder of prisoners. For a military force which loves to brag about how professional and unquestionable its chain of command is, does this really ring true?

It's more appropriate to conclude that until a General officer or a Cabinet Secretary is jailed for these crimes, the scandal of Abu Ghraib isn't a sign of freedom's endurance in America nor necessarily its demise. Instead, it's a sign of hypocrisy, dishonour and cowardice in denying responsibility for crimes committed in the name of democracy.

Credit: The Washington Post

When you look at the picture above, there are unmistakeable echoes of Nazi SS guards bullying concentration camp prisoners, aren't there? In 1945, US Forces helped liberate people from hellish prisons with brutal guards and dogs. But in 2005, US Forces now incarcerate people in hellish prisons with brutal guards and dogs.

This is must be "freedom", neo-con style!

Report says Iraq is new terrorist training ground

2005-01-21T13:02:00.000+11:00

An article in the Washington Post talks about how the US government's own National Intelligence Council says that Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the new terrorist training ground since the invasion by US Forces. Doh!

What a surprise. I suppose the neo-cons can use the excuse of Iraq now being a terrorist training camp to invade the country all over again! At least this time, it'd be half legitimate compared with the first time around.

Iraqi Misadventure = Global Nightmare

2005-01-20T11:39:00.001+11:00

Why did so many people oppose Bush, Blair and Howard going to war in Iraq?

By going to war without a UN Security Council mandate while using now discredited and fabricated evidence, Bush, Blair and Howard have actually set a very dangerous precedent. Now, any country wishing to settle scores with another can simply manufacture a pretext, bypass the UN and claim retrospective legitimacy for doing so.

If we don’t allow this logic to justify invading someone’s home and bashing their face in, why should we accept Bush, Blair and Howard doing the same thing? On a more global perspective, if and when China invades Taiwan using the same strategy, what moral grounds would the trio have to oppose China’s actions?

By opposing the Iraqi invasion, wasn’t this supporting Saddam Hussein, his NBC weapons development, the World Trade Centre suicide attacks and the atrocities committed against his own people?

Let’s be very clear from the start about what people who opposed the invasion supported or didn’t support. We opposed Hussein and were thoroughly prepared to back a war to act against him, if one was needed. But we supported going to the proper forum for determining what action to take against him. That forum is called the UN Security Council. It is not the White House, 10 Downing Street nor Kirribilli House.

That forum judged insufficient evidence existed to take the drastic step of visiting war upon a country and inevitably killing civilians along the way. Recent history has now proven that the UN Security Council was correct. In addition, no less than a US Congressional investigation concluded that the so-called evidence of Iraq developing NBC weapons, being involved in the WTC attacks and responsible for every other ill in the world, wasn’t worth a brass razoo.

Who in their right mind should now believe a single word that emanates from the White House, 10 Downing Street and Kirribilli House? Their actions and words following exposure of the fabricated evidence are telling. Notice how they changed their original reasons from NBC weapons to regime change or to even more lamely, “the Iraqi people are better off without Hussein anyway.”

If regime change and “leaving the Iraqi people better off anyway” were the true reasons, why didn’t Bush, Blair and Howard, who apparently believe their own nonsense, offer these reasons to the UN Security Council and their own people in the first place? Could it be because the trio knew nobody would countenance a war for such reasons?

Many Bush, Blair and Howard supporters claim that it was the approach of appeasement towards Hitler, which eventually led to World War II. So how can critics defend opposition to the war as anything other than appeasement?

Again, let’s be clear about pertinent historical facts. In the run up to World War II, Neville Chamberlain sought to “appease” Hitler by acquiescing first to the union of Austria with Germany (forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles), and then to the eventual complete annexure of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain did so believing it would prevent war in Europe.

In the case of Iraq, the country had been shattered by its defeat in the first Gulf War of 1991. Its economy was in ruins due to UN-imposed sanctions and I should add, a little reported but extremely active 11 year campaign of air strikes by US, British and French forces in Northern and Southern Iraq. Remember the so-called “No-Fly Zones” or more properly, Air Exclusion Zones? That’s what they were about.

In the period January to August 1999 alone, US and British aircraft launched over 1,100 missiles against 359 Iraqi targets for no losses of their own. In fact, over the life of the zones, no US or British losses occurred. That's certainly not evidence of a threatening Iraqi military force.

The point of the observations is that Iraq, shattered by the 1991 Gulf War and crippling UN sanctions was in no position to defend its own airspace, let alone threaten its neighbours with invasion or territorial annexure like Germany before the war. There was no need to defend “appeasement” of Saddam Hussein in the run up to the recent Iraqi War because there were no threatening actions to appease.

As for the other claims of threats from NBC weapons and involvement in the WTC attacks, the US Congressional investigation has already demolished these arguments and consigned them to the dustbin of history.

Many Bush supporters claim he is like Churchill, standing up to tyrants like Saddam Hussein. So why not support Bush, a man after Churchill’s heart?

We really shouldn’t insult the memory of Churchill and British honour by equating Bush with Churchill! Bush has neither the intellect nor gravitas to be equated with Churchill’s little toe. Let the historical facts speak for themselves, since Bush supporters seem not to know their history.

In the lead up to World War II, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, was tasked by Hitler to devise a pretext for Germany to invade Poland. Operation Himmler, as it was known, involved a series of staged anti-German provocations which then gave Hitler the excuse to invade Poland in September 1939. Churchill went to war because Germany invaded a sovereign country, Poland, and not because of sham claims of forbidden weapons!

With all the sordid lies over Iraq now having been exposed by the US Congress and the US NBC weapons inspector appointed by Bush himself, it’s more relevant to equate Bush’s actions with those of Hitler.

The US now occupies Iraq and wants to hand over power to a government formed after elections in January 2005. Isn’t this worth supporting?

Let’s use a simple analogy to address this question.

Your friend is unhappy with a difficult neighbour. He claims to have evidence the neighbour is a drug trafficker and so wants to enter the neighbour’s house and bash his head in. You object and advise a better and more legal way is for your friend to take his evidence to the police. He does so but the police say more evidence is required before taking action. Not satisfied, your friend replies saying that the police and courts are ineffective and outdated, and besides the court never hands down judgments in your friend’s favour anyway.

Based on this reasoning, your friend then does as he intended, enters the neighbour’s house, bashes the neighbour’s head in and kills some of the innocent occupants along the way. Later, following further investigation, the police say the evidence provided was fabricated by your friend. Now, this friend wants you to help him bury the bodies, rebuild the house, install new owners chosen by him and foot part of the bill. Would you agree to help your friend?

Switch to Iraq now. If the forthcoming elections are truly democratic, would the Bush regime really countenance a Muslim government hostile to the US, coming into power? Or would it run Florida-style elections to ensure its chosen puppet Allawi gets elected?

How much legitimacy would Allawi have in the eyes of Iraqis? After all, this is the man who laughably claimed responsibility and authority for ordering the “liberation” of Falluja. If the US Marines have been doing all the fighting, and the US has an immutable policy of not placing any of its troops under foreign flag command, who are Allawi and Bush trying to kid?

Allawi now and after the elections, if they occur, will have as much legitimacy as the worthless and corrupted American puppet of the Vietnam War, Ngo Dinh Diem. Without a continuing US military presence on the ground in Iraq, Allawi would last as long as his Vietnamese predecessor did.

Changing the subject a bit, isn’t Islamic terrorism a real danger to the world and must therefore be fought vigorously?

Let me say this unequivocally. Islamic terrorism, like any other brand of terrorism, is a real danger to all manner of civil societies. People responsible for terrorist acts must be hunted down and brought to justice. It is because the threat they pose is so real, so savage and so insidious and the psychological disruption so widespread, that our counter actions must not only have clarity of focus but most crucially, integrity of purpose.

Neither clarity of focus nor integrity of purpose can exist if they are corrupted by deceptions and diversions like the Iraq War. This is because non-Muslim countries cannot hope to defeat Islamic extremists without moderate Muslims joining in action with us. Why should they believe that our counter actions aren’t directed against their religion but at the criminal actions of Islamic terrorists; when our position is tarnished by lies of our political leaders? Who believes proven liars?

This is the fundamental reason for our anger with Bush, Blair and Howard. By their behaviour, they have gravely undermined the prosecution of a deadly serious battle against a savage and insidious enemy. Being trans-national, they exist within a moderate religious-cultural milieu spanning the globe. Without assistance from members of this Muslim milieu to point out and help hunt down these extremists, we will lose the battle.

The US military is the most powerful in the world, so why is help from moderate Muslims needed anyway?

Each mis-step by Bush, Blair and Howard, whether born out of stupidity, arrogance or ignorance, simply scandalises more and more moderate Muslims and non-Muslims alike. If the US and the incredible shrinking Coalition of the Willing struggle to subjugate 25m Iraqis, how will they cope with subjugating 284m Indonesians, 24m Malaysians, 26m Saudis and 69m Iranians? These are just a few Muslim countries whose populations oppose US actions in Iraq, never mind non-Muslim countries like France, Germany and Spain, to name a few, who also bitterly oppose the Bush administration.

Simple arithmetic tells us that there are far more anti-Bush, anti-Blair and anti-Howard people around the world than there are supporters. Unless the neo-cons intend to declare war against the growing numbers of people who oppose them, the power of the gun cannot win in what is a battle for the hearts and minds of moderate Muslims. So how do Bush, Blair and Howard intend to intimidate moderate Muslims around the world into cooperating with the US? Threaten use of nuclear weapons if they fail to cooperate? Conduct pre-emptive strikes in their countries? Declare a crusade (to quote Bush) against them? Is this more or less likely to convert moderate Muslims into fanatics; welcoming death in defence of their faith?

Bush et al also seem to believe that if moderate Muslim governments are intimidated into submission, the ordinary people will automatically follow. If this is the neo-con strategy, they should think again. After all, if the world is being urged to close ranks against Islamic radicals who threaten our way of life, why wouldn’t embittered moderate Muslims around the world close ranks with the likes of Al Qaeda when their way of life is threatened by the US, Britain and Australia? Remember, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Were this to happen, the battle against Islamic extremists would be lost. We would not only swell their ranks beyond their wildest fantasies but also ensure their survival for generations to come. The trans-national terrorists would find ready refuge in the global Muslim milieu and those Muslim governments cooperating with the US would fall like skittles in a bowling alley. This is because these governments would be judged by their people to have failed to defend Islam.

Do the neo-cons have a strategy to manage the resulting anarchy around a good portion of the world then? Or is their solution to nuke the newly multiplied enemy? Do Bush, Blair and Howard believe that the rest of the non-Muslim world including China, will stand idly by, believing they aren’t next? Welcome to World War III and oh please, leave your life at the door.

Has anything good come out of the war in Iraq?

In a word, no.

It has already been said many times by numerous parties; including no less than the US government’s own National Intelligence Council, that even if Iraq wasn’t a hotbed of terrorism before, it is now – thanks to Bush, Blair and Howard. In our deadly serious battle against homicidal terrorists, what is critical in the bigger picture is whether the Iraq War has galvanised moderate Muslims to join with us in defeating Islamic terrorists.

Looking at the grotesque images from the Abu Ghraib Prison scandal, dead non-combatant civilians shrugged off as “collateral damage,” or a cigar chomping, ghoulishly grinning US Marine officer saying that Falluja (with a deserted street in the background, full of buildings reduced to rubble) has been “liberated,” would any moderate Muslim or fair-minded non-Muslim seriously desire to be associated with, let alone participate in our cause? If anything, the tragic events unfolding in Iraq are unwittingly creating the opposite effect within moderate Muslim and non-Muslim communities around the globe.

Let me tell you about a startling discovery I made when visiting Singapore in October 2004. Some people may know that Singapore was one of the first countries in SE Asia to raise the alarm about Jema’ah Islamiah (Al Qaeda’s SE Asian counterpart) after detaining 22 extremists planning to bomb the US, British and Australian diplomatic facilities there.

Immediately after the WTC attacks, there was much sympathy and support in Singapore for the US in taking action against the Taliban in Afghanistan. That was in late 2001. Yet, by late 2004, every friend I know has expressed disquiet or outright hostility towards Bush’s actions in Iraq.

For a country which has long been a close US ally, and also a regular recipient of boorish treatment from a Muslim neighbour, Malaysia, this was startling. It was even more sobering to me that these views came from non-Muslims. If non-Muslims in Singapore think this way, how do we think moderate Muslims in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and elsewhere around the world feel?

Do we honestly believe moderate Muslims will come forward and join the battle alongside nations led by proven liars and war-mongers - and here’s the sting - also re-elected by their people? Or would they be justified in concluding that we are hypocrites and refuse to join in action against the extremists?

What is a critical issue now?

Before and after the Iraq War, Bush, Blair and Howard disingenuously and dishonestly portrayed legitimate questions about their motives for going to war, as attempts to do a “Neville Chamberlain.” That Bush et al portrayed these questions as attempts at appeasement should have caused their citizens to demand a light be shone upon their leaders' hidden agenda.

Instead, Bush and Howard have been rewarded with re-election by voters who didn’t know, still don’t know, or don’t care about what these men did. How can this be portrayed as democracy when these men haven’t been held accountable for their deception and more seriously, complicity in an unwarranted and illegal war?

Now that both men are claiming strengthened mandates because of increased shares of votes, people daring to question Bush’s and Howard’s actions are labelled as anti-American and anti-Australian. So it now seems that citizens who voted against both men and still dare to question the men, are guilty of treason!

For those who support these men’s actions, if this is what American and Australian democracy is about, then the citizens of these countries are lost. And their most dangerous enemy is to be found in the mirror.